Monday, 13th February 2017
Two of our Sandringham Yacht Club (SYC) Youth Match Racing Teams have just recently returned from competing in the 2017 Hardy Cup that was sailed out of Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. The event was well attended with a total of ten teams competing, including three teams from New Zealand, a team from Darwin Sailing Club, four Sydney teams and our two SYC teams.
Our two teams representing SYC, both still reasonably new to match racing and also participants of our 2016 SYC Match Racing Program, were capably lead by skippers Philippa Solly and Rhett Gowans. Philippa’s team who entered the regatta as the 5th highest ranked team based on the world match racing rankings consisted of Philippa on the helm, Jeremy O’Connell, Rebecca Robson, Gemma Burns and Eliza Solly. On the other hand, Rhett’s team who entered the regatta as the 7th highest ranked team based on the world match racing rankings consisted of Rhett on the helm, Hayden Brown, Greg Jackson, Jordan Sunkel-Lozell and Tyrone Gowans.
The event, sailed in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s fleet of ten Elliot 7’s which were kindly loaned to Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron for the duration of the regatta, proved to be a valuable learning experience for both of our SYC teams. It was a fantastic opportunity for Rhett and his team to re-familiarise themselves with the boat having only ever sailed the Elliot 7’s once before at the Australian Youth Match Racing Championships back in October 2016. As for Philippa’s team, this was the first outing for all team members on the Elliot 7’s so it was a steep learning curve!
As the regatta progressed, there were noticeable improvements from both teams as the boat handling came together, enabling the teams to focus more on the tactical side of match racing. Match racing is a great format of sailing and certainly favours those who have been match racing for some time! In a one on one format, each race has a winner and a loser and the unfortunate aspect of match racing is that the results just don’t reflect how well the losing team in a match sailed nor how close the finish of a match actually was. This was the case for a lot of the races for our SYC teams with a few minor errors proving costly in their matches and consequently the overall results. Nevertheless, this is sailing and like in most cases, demonstrates that those who make the least mistakes often come out on top in a race or series of races, whether that be in match racing or fleet racing.
Both teams sailed exceptionally well and continued to take away many valuable lessons from each and every race sailed. Unfortunately Philippa’s team was knocked out to finish in 10th place on day three after an umpire accidentally made an error in wrongfully penalising team Solly after their boom hit the windward mark in their last windward rounding despite the boom being allowed to hit a rounding mark. Nevertheless, those things happen and even though the umpire was extremely apologetic, there is nothing that can be done to overturn an umpire initiated decision. This saw team Solly soaking up the sun on the final day watching and learning from the finals racing which also saw team Gowans racing three other teams to determine who would finish in places 5th – 8th. In the end it wasn’t meant to be and Rhett and his team were knocked out to finish in 8th place after a couple minor yet critical mistakes.
There were some great lessons that both teams took away from this regatta as well as massive improvements to their match racing skills. Congratulations must go to Ash Rooklyn from Double Bay Sailing Club (NSW) for taking out the win in what was an extremely well sailed regatta. A big thank you to the entire team from Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron (both members and staff) and also to the four families who billeted our two teams whilst they were competing in the regatta! This was definitely a fantastic event and we hope to be in attendance next year in 2018!
Both teams were extremely appreciative of all the support that Sandringham Yacht Club has provided to them and are really looking forward to taking part in what is set to be a bigger and better 2017 SYC Match Racing Program.
For those who are interested in participating in the 2017 SYC Match Racing Program, stay tuned for information to follow in the coming week! This year’s program is set to be a big one and will continue to build on from where the 2016 program finished up which proved to be a huge success!
