The 2019 NSW Youth Championships wrapped up today at Point Wolstoncroft Sport & Recreation Centre, with sunny skies and tight racing deciding podium finishes.

The regatta saw a record number of Flying 11 fleet entries, and President of the Flying 11 Association of Australia, John Dransfield, was on hand to catch all the action. 

“Point Wolsoncroft really turned it on for us this weekend, the Flying 11s had a fleet of 41 boats with Queensland sending down a fleet of nine and others coming in from all over New South Wales,” Dransfield was quote as saying. “Today’s conditions of 15-17 knot winds really got the best out of the fleet. There was some really good teamwork on the reaches and teams getting the spinnakers up, there were also a few capsizes and some very close racing”. 

Winners of the Flying 11, Jamie Stodart and Ash Napper from Manly 16ft skiff club, came into the event hoping for a top 3 finish so were very happy to take home the Gold today. 
“It was pretty light the first two days but we had good winds today. We are happy to have won and hoping for the same result now at Nationals.” said Stodart after the regatta. “There were lots of boats and it was pretty close around mid-fleet,” added Napper. “I’m loving the Flying 11s and I just love how fast we go”. 

In the Optimists Intermediates, Henri Levenspiel maintained a solid lead throughout the regatta and finished the week with a well-deserved gold medal. Likewise in the Optimists open it was Austin Cross who continued his mature sailing to take the win and Clover Norman taking first girl. 

Hunters Hill Sailing Club Optimist Coach, Jaime Swavley said “The kids had a great time here learning about how to take advantage of a good upwind and about not getting distracted by other sailors.

The talented Tasmanian team of Oscar O’Donoghue and Rupert Hamilton rounded out a great week of racing finishing 13 points ahead of the rest of the field with Zoe Dransfield and Madeleine McLeay in second place and first girls will be strong contenders for Nationals  

In the Laser 4.7 Queenslanders took out gold and silver with Isaac Schotte finishing first and Hugo Ralph in second. New South Welsh athlete Olivia Williams finished just one point behind in third.

Otto Henry from RSYS/WSC/DBSC    was outstanding in the Laser Radials, finishing with nine net points after the nine races with two drops. He spoke about the final day of racing when he said “The forecast today didn’t look too promising, but luckily it came in pretty nicely and we were able to knock down two races in solid yet shifty conditions. I finished fourth in the first race so put in extra effort to take first in the final race. I was really happy with my improvement from the event last year and on a good track for Nationals in January. First girl in the Laser Radial was Mina Ferguson overall finishing in four place.

Daniel Links and Jack Ferguson were another happy team at the end of racing today, after they held on to their overnight lead to win the 420 class.  

The Nacra 15 was one of the closes classes at the event, with Brin Liddell and Rhiannan Brown finishing just one and a half points ahead of Cole Tapper and Evie Haseldine after the final race. 

Cruising his way to gold in the Techno 293 was Mitch Kruse, whilst in the Techno Plus it was another close finish with Matthew Quinlan finishing just one point ahead of Hamish Swain.  

Curtis O’Reilly was completely dominant in the Open Skiff Gold, dropping just two points across the regatta. In the Open Skiff Silver Jack Paterson was similarly commanding in his way to gold.

Gosford Sailing Club’s Miles Greenwood finished ahead of three Queensland athletes in the Sabot, which will be another fantastic class to watch at the 2020 Sabot Nationals. 

The New South Wales Youth Championship event is the largest gathering of youth sailors nationally each year, with over 350 entrants this year. Thank you to the more than seventy volunteers for making this event happen.

The Australian Youth Championships will be held at Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club 10-14 January 2020.

For all the latest NSW Youth Championship interviews, images, videos and racing updates visit www.sailingyouth.org.au and via the socials@AustSailYouth on Facebook and Instagram

Full Results from #NSWYOUTHS 2019 | CLICK HERE

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Website | www.sailingyouth.org.au

© ðŸ“¸ Beau Outteridge / Australian Sailing