49er & FX: New faces at the fore of 49er NZ Nationals fleet
by Richard Gladwell 23 Feb 2019 22:26 GMT
24 February 2019
Logan Dunning Beck / Oscar Gunn (NZL) - 49er - Day 4 - Hempel Sailing World Championships, Aarhus - August 2018 © Sailing Energy / World Sailing
The up and coming combination of Logan Dunning-Beck and Oscar Gunn (Wakatere) are tied at the top of the points table with crack Australian crew of Will and Sam Phillips in the NZ 49er National being contested at Murrays bay Sailing Club, this weekend.
The two crews are five points clear of current Olympic Champions in the class, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke.
Burling and Tuke looked like they had hardly missed a beat after an almost two year absence from the class for an America's Cup and Volvo Ocean race sojourn, when the won the Oceanbridge NZL Sailing Regatta two weeks ago. There they won six of the 11 races sailed, against many of the same fleet who are contesting the NZ Nationals.
However the NZ nationals have proved to be a much tougher test, with the winning being spread amongst the fleet. Six crews have scored wins in the eight races sailed to the end of Day 2. The top five crews are covered by just eight points at the end of Day 2.
The competition provided by the three Australian crews has served to up the ante in the 13 boat competition which has also attracted entries from Japan and Korea, indeed Japiwi, Leonard Takahashi and Ibuki Koizmi (JPN) won Race 8 - and were the third nation to win a race in the series.
Burling and Tuke have put themselves under pressure with a premature start in race 3, which resulted in them scoring the maximum possible points and are having to carry that as their discard place.
The 49erFX Nationals which are being sailed in conjunction with the 49er event are proceeding much as expected with Olympic Silver medalists and past world champions Alex Maloney and Mollie Meech holding an 8pt lead over an Australian crew, Tess Lloyd and Jamie Ryan, with Austrian crews taking third and fourth overall after eight races. Several male crews are also competing in the event, which has attracted a nine boat entry.
For full results click here