RPAYC

Wednesday 5th August 2009
By Max Vos

With the Club Marine NSW Youth Championships underway, the RPAYC Youth Development team (Reece Tailby, Matt Stenta, Matt Dodds, and Max Vos) were off to a flying start. Race One was closely contested against Jayden Stevens’ team from the RSYS. With bowman (M.Vos) almost trading a tooth for a win. Fortunately we scraped in front of the opposition and managed to take the win by a metre. Race Two brought out another challenging race against Josie Ropers team from the CYCA. The RPAYC team was unable to control through the start, and ended up being led up the first work, but with good crew work our team was able to pull off a quick kite drop and get around the bottom mark on the inside. After this, they were able to control the other boat all the way to the finish.

In Race Four we were once again put under pressure as we came up against the regattas top ranked team with Jay Griffin at the helm. Unfortunately the CYCA’s team’s experience in match racing and sailing the Elliott 6’s paid off. The regatta’s winning team were able to show us a classy display in match racing and they were able to lead us around the course.

After the high of winning our first two we went into Race Six still with a positive attitude in a race against the other RPAYC team.  We were able to come out on top and add another point to our overall result.

After the tight racing of Day One and a beautiful day on Sydney Harbour, we came out sixth on the ladder and were able to proceed to the quarter finals. With the second day of the Championships dawning and predicted 10-15 knot westerlies eventuating,  the conditions for Day 2 were almost a mirror image of Day One. During the quarter finals we came up against the Ollie Hartas’s team. Unfortunately we went down two-nil to them and did not proceed to the semi-finals.

After a beautiful weekend on Sydney Harbour, the regatta ended up being a great learning curve for the Youth Development squad. After 15 races, the team ended up sixth after a long weekend on the water. The team would like to thank RPAYC and its members as a whole, for the support that it gives to the Youth Development Squad. Without you we would not be able to make it to these regattas.