Thirty five plus degree heat greeted Musto International Youth Match Racing competitors on Day 3 with race officials abandoning racing when 30 knot gusts swept up the Harbour.
Principal Race Officer, Denis Thompson said that it was a tough day but all of the competitors did a really good job handling the conditions.
“It was a testing day with a north westerly at 15-18 knots early which shifted 50 degrees and eventually ended up coming in from the west,” Thompson said. “Most of the racing was in about 18 to 20 knots until we postponed racing around 1pm and sheltered the boats behind Clarke Island. We waited for the wind to moderate and tried to get in a couple of starts but the breeze was consistently too strong.”
Race Officials made the call to return to shore for further signals and then abandoned racing for the day much to the delight of competitors.
Harry Price of Cruising Yacht Club of Australia had a day of mixed results on the water with interesting matches against James Hodgson (Sunshine Coast Sailing Team) and Emma May (CYCA).
“It was a better than expected day given that it was a westerly,” Price said. “James beat us early on, we were leading comfortably coming into the bottom mark but we got a bit excited with the speed and forgot about the bottom mark and what we were doing so that was a bit disappointing.”
Hodgson went on to beat Price who in the first match forced May into several penalties resulting in a black flag saying that “it is all a part of it,” when drawing penalties from his CYCA counterpart.
“We had to have speed all of the time so we couldn’t stop the boat and just worked with that and the penalties were there so we were happy with the result,” Price said.
In regards to the conditions Price said that they struggled and look forward to the lighter conditions predicted for the final day of the championship.
“Towards the end it felt like 600 degrees and we were in 30 knot winds so it was tough and tiring but hopefully the lighter conditions tomorrow will be easier, when you’re in windy conditions you are just always struggling.
“We finished the round robins comfortably in second which is good going into finals without the added pressure of being the lead boat.”
Leonard Fry comfortably claimed top stop after the round robins following a cracking three days of competition from the 16-year-old Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron member.
Fry has selected William Boulden from the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club as his opponent for the semi-finals tomorrow leaving Price to take on Malcolm Parker (Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club) in the other semi.
Boulden had a better day today after minor errors towards the end of day two on the Harbour.
“We improved from yesterday afternoon and had a good morning session today with four wins from four starts so we are all really happy with that result,” Boulden said.
“We were getting 30 knots plus as we came in, so it was great to be back at the CYCA.”
In their first time competing out of the CYCA Boulden praised his highly adaptive team mates.
“I like to think of our team as a bit of a utility team, we have a lot of utility guys so we can switch people around from bow to trim to where ever they need to be so even if I break a leg or something Dougie (Douglas Campbell) will be there to slide straight in on the stick so we are pretty happy with how everything is going,” Boulden said.
“We are all getting looked after really well too, we are staying with Damian Garbowski’s grandparents which is really good, they are putting on a massive fed for us every night and we have all had food comas the last few nights,” a satisfied Boulden said.
The Musto International Youth Match Racing Championship will conclude tomorrow.
– CYCA Media
