Wednesday, 7th October 2015
After the St Leonard’s Sailing Team achieved their outstanding result in the 2015 Australian Schools Team Racing Championship (held in Qld), the girl’s (from that team) were offered the opportunity to represent Australia at The Interdominion Schools Girl’s Team Racing Championship. The St Leonard’s College girl’s sailing team has six keen female sailors who are based at SYC completing their training on many winter Saturday mornings. The team includes SYC members Caroline Brown (capt), Zara Challis and Jess Butters who sailed at Canberra YC, competing in the 30th annual Inter-Dominion Schools Teams Racing Championship, held between 25-29 September 2015. This annual championship is sailed between the top team racing schools from NZ and Australia.
The St Leonard’s College sailing team competed as an all girls team for the first time and without their their long time captain Hayden Brown. On day 1 of the regatta the Victorian girls faced off against five other girls teams from Australia and NZ in what were very challenging sailing conditions. Our sailors experienced a range of wind strengths and directions, making it important for team members to stay focused until they had crossed the line. Unfortunately, the results from day 1 did not reflect how close the racing was between the schools. The St Leonard’s College girl’s began the regatta with a relatively rocky start only winning 1 out of our 5 races for the day.
However, after polishing off 1kg of Nutella (their secret weapon), they were ready for the next day’s racing. The morning of day 2 had teams sitting around for hours waiting for wind to finally arrive. Although, all teams were entertained with the Southern Spirit Foundation Day held by Canberra Yacht Club) which provided jumping castles and face paint. After two hours of waiting around; the wind finally arrived, with perfect conditions for the Victorian team. After three complete round robins, St Leonard’s were sitting on top of the ladder in the female division on 8.5 wins followed by the two NZL teams on 7 wins. This meant that they had a two race win buffer over the NZL teams going into the final day.
Day 3 again featured light and shifting breezes with racing postponed until 1.30pm, with only one round robin being completed inside the racing time limit. The girl’s couldn’t quite get off the line only managing 1 win out of the 5 races. Racing was again very close between all the schools with race leads changing constantly right up to the line. All the girls have definitely learned from the experience with their team racing and sailing has improved because of it.
Eventual winners were New Plymoth College NZ (11 points), with St Leonard’s College finishing the regatta as the top Australian girls team in 3rd place on 9.5 points.
Featured picture:
L-R Zara Challis (SYC), Kate Weppner (SYC), Caroline Brown (capt)(SYC), Clare Burns, Sofia Burns and Jess Butters (SYC). (Missing James Sly (SYC)- Coach)