Sydney’s traditional summer sea breeze arrived on day three of Sail Sydney, with the morning session for Olympic classes held in north to north-easterly breezes 12-14 knots and the afternoon session flying in 16 knots gusting to 22 out of the nor ‘east on the Nacra 17 course.
The Australian Sailing Team’s Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin tore their Nacra 17 mainsail horizontally during the second race of day three, prompting a dash from their Sow & Pigs reef course area to Middle Harbour Yacht Club in a coach boat to retrieve the spare.
“It’s a Rio edition sail and these things happen,” said Darmanin. “I jumped on with Bundy (coach Darren Bundock) and we hightailed it ashore – lucky we had a spare sitting there. We scrambled to get the battens in and we were ready to go 20 seconds before the start of the third race.
“It’s been a super tricky Sail Sydney, even today was tricky though it was windy,” she added. On the competition she commented: “Having the Kiwis here makes the intensity high, they are clever when it’s windy.”
With their one dropped race Rio 2016 silver medalists Waterhouse and Darmanin are one point ahead of the NZL Nacra team of Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders.
Australian Sailing Squad athletes Tess Lloyd and Jamie Ryan lead the 49erFX class from Natasha Bryant and Annie Wilmot. The first international team in the progressive point score of Stephanie Roble and Margaret Shea (USA) are enjoying their first Sydney event with the support of the Kilroy Realty Corporation.
The Kilroy sign-written on their skiff’s mainsail refers to John Kilroy, son of one of yachting’s greats – Jim Kilroy – who built a series of yachts called Kialoa from the 1950s to the 80s and pioneered the era of maxi boat racing.
“John is a big name in sailing who has been a huge supporter of ours,” Roble said back in the yard at the host club, Woollahra Sailing Club in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. “We are a year out from our Olympic qualifiers, the worlds in New Zealand, and there are always gains to be made but we are happy where we are at.”
Australian Sailing Squad 470 sailors Nia Jerwood and Monique de Vries are well ahead in the point score with a day to go before they and many others hook their boat trailers up to cars and drive south for Sail Melbourne, from December 12 – 16, 2018.
“We enjoyed the extra wind today, and racing against the internationals, and it was good to keep up with the boys,” Jerwood said.
The internationals are owning the heavy-weight Finn class at Sail Sydney, with Nicholas Heiner (NED) leading Josh Junior (NZL) and Ed Wright (GBR). The first Australians are Jake Lilley in fourth and Oli Tweddell in fifth.
West Australian 49er men’s skiff pair of David and Lachy Gilmour had a three-peat of wins in the skiff class which puts them 13 points clear of the runners-up, Queensland’s Tom Needham and Joel Turner, discounting their worst score.
In the Laser full-rig Matt Wearn has a buffer of six points from Sam Meech (NZL) going into the final day of competition and in the Laser Radial Open fleet, Queenslander Mara Stransky moved into the top spot overall thanks to a third and second.
“‘It was heaps of fun today and good to give the legs a bit of a stretch,” Stransky said. “We had a different course area and different wind direction and strength, a lot of things to think about. Going into the last day the points are all pretty close – it will be about who makes the least mistakes.”
Friday’s forecast is very similar to Thursday’s, northerlies 10-15 knots tending north-easterly 15-20 knots in the morning and reaching up to 25 knots in the afternoon and evening. Invited and Youth classes join the Olympic classes on Sydney Harbour on Friday for their opening day of competition.
A full list of results can be found on the Sail Sydney website.
Australian Sailing Team and Squad Results:
470 Men
Chris Charlwood/Josh Dawson – 4, 2, 4, 1, 5 – 4th
Mat Belcher/Will Ryan – 3, 3, 5, 1, 1 – 3rd
470 Women
Nia Jerwood/Monique de Vries – 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 – 1st
Dana Tavener/Katherine Shannon – 2, 3, 3, 3, 3 – 3rd
49er
David Gilmour/Lach Gilmour – 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1 – 1st
Tom Needham/Joel Turner – 3, 6, 2, 2, 1, 5, 2, 2 – 2nd
Kurt Hansen/Simon Hoffman – 8, 5, 4, 7, 7, 7, 4, 4 – 6th
49erFX
Tess Lloyd/Jaime Ryan – 3, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 4 – 1st
Natasha Bryant/Annie Wilmot – 6, 3, 3, 8, 1, 4, 4, 1 – 2nd
Amelia Stabback/Caitlin Elks – 8, 4, 1, 2, 8, 4, 5, 2 – 3rd
Finn
Jake Lilley – 4, 4, 3, 9, 2 – 4th
Oliver Tweddell – 6, 6, 2, 2, 7 – 5th
Jock Calvert – 13, 8, 16, 10, 4 – 10th
Lewis Brake – 9, 12, 14, 12, 10 – 12th
Laser
Matt Wearn – 1, 2, 2, 2, 1 – 1st
Luke Elliott – 4, 7, 5, 1, 7 – 4th
Mitchell Kennedy – 11, 6, 1, 4, 3 – 5th
Finn Alexander – 9, 11, 6, 5, 6 – 8th
Laser Radial
Mara Stransky – 2, 3, 2, 3, 2 – 1st
Nacra 17
Jason Waterhouse/Lisa Darmanin – 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1 – 1st
Paul Darmanin/Lucy Copeland – 2, 3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 2, 3 – 3rd
