Ten teams to tangle at women's keelboat nationals

2019 NZ Women's Keelboat Nationals © Andrew Delves

Ten all-female teams will take to the water in the MRX fleet at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland this weekend for the 2020 Barfoot & Thompson NZ Women's National Keelboat Championship.

The entry list contains a very impressive list of female sailors, many of whom have had great success in many facets of women's sailing around the world, in New Zealand, and more specifically at this event.

Three-time champion Karleen 'Dixie' Dixon is competing and will be gunning for her fourth win at this event. Dixon finished third last year, and with a very high caliber selection of teams competing again, winning her fourth title won't be a walk in the park.

2019 champion Sally Garett is back to defend her title, a title which took her twenty years to win, and you can bet on the fact she and her team will be giving it their all to win it again.

A new name on the entry list is Ocean Race sailor Bianca Cook. Cook is currently preparing to sail her NZ Ocean Racing VO65 in the 2022-23 Ocean Race, and was hoping to be doing an offshore race this weekend, but with the dates of this event changing from earlier this year, she has had to let the NZ Ocean Race team go without her -

"Whilst I would love to be sailing offshore with NZ Ocean Racing this weekend, I'm really looking forward to sailing with a fantastic group of female sailors at the Barfoot & Thompson NZ Women's Keelboat Nationals!"

2015 champion Melinda Henshaw has finished runner-up at the previous two events in 2018 & 2019 and will be motivated to go one step further and secure her second title this weekend.

Finishing in fifth place last year was RNZYS Performance Programme sailor and 2.0 Racing skipper Megan Thomson. Thomson and her young team are excited for another great weekend sailing in the MRX's against some tough competition -

"We're super excited to get back out there. There are some incredibly talented sailors competing again this year, many of whom we look up to as a team, so it's going to be great fun and we will need to be right on our game if we want to improve on last year's solid result."

Another big name racing this weekend is Olympic Gold Medalist Polly Powrie. Not only has Powrie won an Olympic Gold Medal, but she has also been a winner of the ISAF Female World Sailor of the year. Powrie is an experienced keelboat sailor and should be right up there at the front of the fleet this weekend.

Other entries include Sarah Reynolds, Katie Clark, Nuria Ferres Rubau and Parizad Dantra.

Experienced Race Officer Megan Kensington will be calling the shots with her Race Management team on board Te Kouma, and Louie Mayo will lead a team of Umpires making the big decisions on the water during the race.

Racing will be completed at Northern Leading buoy, and will begin at 10am on Saturday and Sunday with up to six windward leeward races per day.