The Alfred’s was represented by two teams last week over in New Caledonia, for the Aircalin Match Racing Regatta, held out of the New Caledonia Yacht Club (CNC).

Niall Powers led his youth (under 23) team with YD sailors Antony Hawke, Jasmine Bridge and Cam Whiteside.

Club yachtsman of the year Chris Way has also decided to have a bit of a dabble, trying his hand in match racing, after enjoying it so much in the clubs prestigious David Lukins Memorial Regatta.

Crewing for Chris is Thomas Brewer and Andrew “Rob” Hudson.

Day 1 got underway in an 18 knot south easterly.

Ted Anderson, (the race officer) made it clear to be prepared for a long day, and it certainly ended up being the case. With 26 flights in the round robin, the racing continued from 1000hrs through to 1730hrs, with 13 flights been completed.

Powers and his team had a pleasing day with 3 wins and 2 losses. The last race of the day proved to be a nail biter with Powers and his crew undertaking a penalty turn right on the finish line to win by the smallest of margins. “Not a faultless day for us, but all in all it’s been very encouraging the way we have started to build as a team” commented a reflective Powers.

Chris Way and his team were exciting to watch , with sudden strokes of brilliance and some other “interesting” manoeuvres. One such moment was receiving his first ever Black Flag, when Tom Picot CNC got three penalty turns on him in the prestart.

However, Chris managed to then produce an upset in the next match by beating the top ranked youth crew from the RNZYS to finish the day with 3wins and 3 losses.

By the end of the first-round robin, both RPAYC teams had managed to make the top 8 out of the 13 entrants, qualifying as the only Australian teams to do so.

Both Powers and Way were tied on points, however since Way beat Powers in the tie-break, he got to nab 7th seed spot.

Both teams had challenging quarter finals, with neither team able to progress to the semi-finals, however both teams showed promise during these matches, leading around the course at times.

In the end Powers got to vs Way again for the 7-8 sail off, with Way crossing the line first, only to be notified that he started early, thus giving Niall Powers and his team bragging rights at the Alfred’s and also top Australians.

Local team led by Tom Picot ended up winning the regatta in both the open and youth category.

We hopefully look forward to welcoming Tom Picot for the Alfred’s prestigious Harken Youth Match Racing Regatta in November this year.

Full Results Here

Following the Nacra 15 Nationals and Australian Youth Championships in Hobart, my skipper moved out of the class and I was offered the opportunity to sail with Georgia Payne. This is a great opportunity the only downside was that she lives and trains in Mandurah south of Perth. We have been getting in as much training as we can, given the difficult commute from one side of the country to the other, but along with our coach Mikael Lundh, we have developed a great team. 

We headed over to the UK in early April to compete in our first regatta together – the RYA Youth National Championships which were being held at WPNSA, the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy. We started the regatta with what looked to be a top 3 result but due to a little mix up with marks, we got a Retired along with the other Aussie team and our German training partners. Once we got that little hurdle out of the way, we started putting in a solid score card in the mixed conditions. An incident at the top mark with a 420 led to a capsize, helmet and boat damage, but worse was the 12^th place we ended up with. That came back to hurt us at the end of the regatta, when we were in medal position on the last day but jumped the gun in the penultimate race and got a UFD. The committee said it was literally millimetres over, but over is over. At the end of the regatta, we were 4^th overall, a result we were stoked with, but a bit sad about what could have been.

Did I say it was cold! It was very cold. Each time you got hit by a wave it took your breath away!

After this regatta and more hard training we were lucky enough to followed it up with another trip to Europe this time we took part in the in Holland, the Dutch Youth Regatta in Workum, Netherlands. Competing with my new skipper Georgia we took to the water in 17 races against a 42-strong fleet made up of the best youth Nacra teams from across 15 participating countries, where 4 of the nations competing used this as the qualifying regatta for the Youth Worlds position. After a tough few days of racing and continual focus on the challenges on the race course,  Georgia and I took out first place overall  to take the gold medal. Our victory included five first-place finishes, three seconds and a third, enough to fend off teams from Germany and France who finished just behind us. The Dutch Youth Regatta was so much fun and is one of the largest sailing events in Europe, and acts as event two of the Nacra 15 European Super Series. Their victory provides them with the perfect platform to launch into the Nacra 15 Open World Championships, where they will again compete in Marseille, France in October.

We have a full schedule of training throughout the rest of the year competing in these international regattas when we can so that when the Nationals and Youths in Melbourne start at the start of 2020 we are ready with everything we have learnt over the year to do our best and hopefully grab the World Youths spot. Thank you so much for supporting us, helping and encouraging us to get out on the water and do our best!

 Nathan Bryant and Georgia Payne

The Alfreds will be represented by two teams this week over in New Caledonia, for the Air Calum Match Racing Regatta, held out of the New Caledonia Yacht club (CNC).

Youth Development Squad Members Niall Powers will lead his youth (under 23) team with Antony Hawke, Jasmine Bridge and Cam Whiteside.

The final stage of the Dustbuster Series was contested on Sunday morning. 

With a 20-30 knot westerly forecast, the Etchells made the bold decision to defer their classes racing to a later date in August (TBC 25/8/19).

The Elliott’s however were chomping at the bit to get out on the water to settle their final placings. A pleasant, but very shifty 10 to 16 knot westerly graced the Elliott competitors for the first 3 races, with the wind strengthening to 25 knots for the fourth and final race.

The first race got underway at 0815hrs under the watchful eye of National Race Officer, Elaine Fowler.

The tussle at the top between regatta leader Pat Langley sailing Riggtech Elliott and Chris Way on Easy Tiger Elliott (with Tom Brewer substituting in) was always going to be exciting to watch, with only a few points separating the two from taking bragging rights.

In the first race, there were plenty of lead changes between the two, with a few teams getting in the way. A few teams decided to call in some heavyweights to fill in for. Alex Robbins on the B&G Elliott called in Jim Colley. Jim has been actively campaigning in the 49er class for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic’s.

John Corrie also decided to bring in some of the Alfreds best youth sailors, with Niall Powers and his team using the Dustbuster as a great warm up before they head off to Noumea next week to compete in a Youth Development Match Racing regatta.

The top two places have been mostly dominated by both Pat and Chris, however both Niall and Jim managed to get in the way!