Last weekend saw our youth sailors competing at McCrae Yacht Club in the Club Marine Victorian Youth Championship among some of the best sailors in the country.
Our Westernport squadron consisted of Eleonore Rich, Vincent Cross, Jeremy and Lucy Gray, Alexander Jurovic and James Fleming. With the exception of James and Vinny, the others also participated in several days coaching prior to the regatta to improve their sailing skills.
It was an impressive fleet with 136 competitors in Optis, Lasers, 420s, Minnows, International Cadet, 29ers and Vipers. Conditions proved tricky for our youths on the Saturday due to shifty and very gusty winds. Conditions on the Sunday were much better as the wind was a bit lighter and generally consistent.
We had some promising results with many top 10 finishes in various races throughout the regatta.
James, Vincent and Eleanor sailed in the tough Laser 4.7s fleet. Eleonore managed to beat Vincent and James in several races which has been a goal for her this season. James had a mixture of results, starting out quite far back in the first race he gradually improved his positioning with every race, eventually beating Eleanor and Vincent by a few places. Vincent had very consistent results which saw him and Eleanor battling throughout most of the races. At the end of the regatta it was very close racing between the Westernport sailors with James finishing 19th, Eleonore 26th and Vincent 29th
The Laser Radials fleet was not as large as the 4.7s, only 12 entrants and 8 or 9 people who actually raced, but the quality of sailing was top notch as the top 6 positions were taken out by Victorian sailing team members and Hamish from the Northern Territory who is the current 4.7 national champion. Alexander found the races very difficult as he just did not have the same speed as the others and found it very difficult to keep up, especially on the downwind legs where the lighter sailors would just pull further and further away. As the first day went on the competition started getting tired from the strong winds which allowed Alexander to finish the first day on a high with a fourth after he was stuck on the start line in irons for around 10 seconds. On the 2nd day Alexander started off quite well coming 3rd around the top mark on the 2nd upwind leg but capsized on the last downwind leg and was then passed by 3 or 4 boats. The same thing happened in the 3rd race of the day. At the end of the regatta Alexander finished 6th overall after struggling with a few rope burns along both hands.
In the Optis, we saw another solid performance from Lucy to take out 24th. Jeremy wisely elected not to sail on the Saturday but finished the regatta with a creditable 33rd in his Opti.
The regatta was very well run and everyone had a great time.
Last Modified on 26/04/2014 07:38