With adverse weather conditions on the final day of racing at the Flying Fifteen Australian Championships held out of Mornington YC on Port Philip Bay, the penultimate day's results stand handing the title to Matt Owen and Andrew Reed from Canberra YC.
Matt Owen has now held the famous Coweslip Trophy for a fifth time as skipper and once as crew. He and crew Andrew Reed sailed a superb series with only wins or seconds, with the only blip being the light day which provided their two discards.
“We are absolutely over the moon, it has been a tough series for us, we have had a new boat beautifully donated to us by David Williamson. Andrew & I had to spend time working out how to get the boat going, It was going super fast in the breeze but we couldn’t get it going in the light stuff which wasn’t too pretty, but we luckily had a good early part of the series which gave us a good buffer before big Craig came charging in at the end.”
Second overall goes to John Wilson and Matthew Summers from South of Perth YC in Western Australia. John summarises his week.
“Its been excellent, terrific sailing venue, we are pleased, we got 3rd last year, 2nd this year so 1st next year? Weather was spot on, race management was excellent, overall an excellent regatta.”
Craig & Ian Rainey from Gippsland Lakes YC came on strong in the light airs to claim third place on the podium.“First off I really enjoyed the regatta, I love sailing at Mornington, Primarily I think the reason we have done good here is our ability to have good boat speed in light winds and heavy winds. Previously the heavy winds have been an issue but we have worked on that and we have been quite consistent all week.”
Sue Thompson and Cameron Taylor from Davey’s Bay YC started the week really strongly only to drop off the pace on the last day of racing, however Sue was still thrilled with their progress to finish fourth overall. “It is my best result at a F15 National championship. A good week, trying conditions but we managed to hang on by our fingernails. Only one bad day on the penultimate day in the super light breeze. Those two races were our two drops.”
The young bucks of the fleet, Lewis Davies and John Radnall from Davey’s Bay YC, sailing the Flying Flamingo won the ‘Rising Stars Trophy’.
“Its been a great week, its been mixed situations between heavy breeze and light breeze, we finished equal 8th, technically 9th overall and no wins but two-seconds, so its been a great regatta for us.”
Overseas visitors, Oliver Merz and Nick Atkinson sailing ‘Exbrats’ from Royal Hong Kong YC enjoyed their regatta finishing a respectable 14th overall.
“Its been a top regatta, we got all the races in, a lot of volunteers out there helping us, cracking conditions, a lot of camaraderie and good racing. We came 14th overall, better than we thought, a few top ten results, we learnt a lot but still plenty of areas to improve.”
Final Results after 8 races (top 6 of 35 boats)
1 AUS4023 Cool Change – Matt Owen/Andrew Reed – 2,1,1,2,1,1,(8),(12) = 8pts
2 AUS3989 FFast – John Wilson/Matthew Summers – (12),6,2,3,2,4,(21),7 = 24pts
3 AUS3880 Where the bloody hell – Craig/Ian Rainey – 9,5,7,(20),4,6,1,4 = 27pts
4 AUS4007 FF – Sue Thompson/Cameron Taylor – 3,3,4,(9),6,3,(11),(24) = 28pts
5 AUS4053 Phar Lap – David Swan/Matt Elliot – 6,8,3,(10),5,5,(9),2 = 29pts
6 AUS3972 Sake – Ashley Smith/Adam Kingston – 5,7,(11),1,8,11,3 (36OB) – 35pts
For full results:
http://www.morningtonyc.com.au/results/2017_18/events/2018FFNationals/open/SGrp5.htm
– Jonny Fullerton
