A stronger and more consistent 15 knot breeze played out in Gdynia on Wednesday, ensuring a full complement of races for the 409 sailors from 66 nations were completed on the third day of the 2019 Hempel Youth Sailing World Championships.

Gdynia has delivered a range of sailing conditions and has given something for everyone and the strong winds were definitely to the liking of Western Australian Zac Littlewood, who moved up into the medal ranks after three days of competition in the 57-boat Laser Radial fleet.

Littlewood jumped from 12^th into third place after an impressive day on the water with a second place in the first race and a race win in the last race. In the Girl’s Laser Radial, Maddie O’Shea is ranked 17^th after posting a second and ninth place.

After three days of competition, the Nacra 15 fleet has seen plenty of ups and downs with Australia’s Will Cooley and Rebecca Hancock taking the lead on day two, but having to hand it back to Germany’s Silas Mühle and Levke Möller on day three, who also led on day one.

Cooley and Hancock posted a seventh, eighth and fourth place and are now ranked second with five points behind Germany and five points ahead of third placed France.

“It was a lot windier than we’ve seen in the competition before, which meant there were bigger waves and some pretty tough conditions out there. Everyone was racing really, really well and brought their A-game to it and there was some really tight racing,” crew Bec Hancock described the conditions.

“We had a bit of a tough day, but in the end we managed to fight to the nail and crawl our way back and end the day on a good note. Will was driving the boat like a mad man, sending it really, really hard and we managed to do pretty well. I think our top speed was 15 to 16 knots today, which was pretty quick but the Swiss (3) beat us.”

And looking ahead Hancock added, “The wind is looking quite light for tomorrow (today) and it should be pretty good. We love any conditions, any sailing is good sailing, but it should be pretty interesting now that the regatta is kind of drawing to a close with four races left. It should be nice and tight and very competitive.”

Also sitting in second place after three days of racing are Archie Cropley and Max Paul in the Boy’s 29er. The pair impressed with a race win in the second race of the day and a strong scorecard of 4-1-3. This sees them move into second place on 40 points behind last year’s winners Norway on 21 points. 

“It’s been pretty good so far. We started a bit slow into the regatta and had a pretty light breeze the first couple of days, but we kept it pretty consistent and stayed close with the top pack. And today we did pretty well and had a bit more breeze which was a bit more beneficial for us,” Max Paul said.

The sailors from Middle Harbour Yacht Club not only put in their strongest day so far, but also had one of the best capsize recoveries of the day, with witnesses drawing comparisons to Olympic champions Nathan Outteridge and Ian Jensen’s race at London 2012.

“We had three races in 15 knots and the last one was probably reaching 20 knots and we had a really good day with a fourth, first and a third. In the last race of the day we hit a big set of waves on the downwind in a big puff and we couldn’t really do anything except pin pole, stick the nose in. So we had a pretty big capsize, but we recovered really well and were tenth at the bottom mark and third again around the top mark. So we did recovered really well to keep up there,” Archie Cropley described the incident.

Cropley will also carry a reminder of the day’s events over the next couple of days with a little ding on his face. “When we went down, Max grabbed my life jacket to slow him down and I’m not very big so I came around pretty big and slammed the deck. It’s not too bad, I’m not concussed, it will just be a nice shiny one tomorrow,” Cropley laughed.

The winner of the day as far as consistency goes went to Australia’s Girl’s 29er team of Alice Buchanan and Dervla Duggan from Tasmania’s Sandy Bay Sailing Club with the pair finishing third in all four races of the day and jumping from 22^nd into ninth place.

“We had a pretty good day and came away with four threes, so we are really happy. Yesterday was pretty challenging but we managed to put it all together today. It was really breezy and a lot of the top guys went down from some pitch poles so there was a lot going on and keeping the boat up was the main aim,” Alice Buchanan said.

“We just made sure we kept the boat up right. I reckon we had 20knots gusts and we were really working on our boat speed. After a challenging day before, we came away with a positive mind set and focussed on taking every day as it comes,” Dervla Duggan added.

In the 30-boat Boy’s 420 fleet Ryan Littlechild and Jack Ferguson had a strong day posting a second and fourth place which saw them moving up into the top ten of the fleet and into tenth place.

In the Girl’s 420, Victorian twins Lily and Matilda Richardson who come from the Mornington Peninsula also moved up and now sit in 12^th place after a 3-13-6 scorecard.

“We had three races in 20 knots today and it was pretty good. We managed to get third in the first race which is pretty exciting and we sailed really well. The next two races weren’t as good but we were still pretty happy with them and we had a better day than the day before,” Matilda Richardson said.

“The swell was a little bit similar to Port Phillip, it was quite choppy, like we get out in the north, but it was definitely a lot more shifty than what we get on the bay,” Lilly Richardson added.

In the Boy’s RS:X Hamish Swain drops into 21^st after a challenging day posting 23, (24), 24, 22. Swain is at his first Youth Sailing World Championships and appreciates the opportunity to race against the best in the world and learn as much as he can.

“It’s been great and I have learnt a lot. The quality of racing is very high and I’m definitely improving throughout the regatta and looking forward to the next days of racing,” Hamish Swain said.

And about the conditions he added, “We had a bit of everything today, rough conditions with a breeze from the north, which was up and down all day with a pretty bad sea state and a very steep chop, which made it touch sailing conditions on our RS:X.”

Four further races are scheduled for Thursday ahead of Friday’s final race with a lighter wind forecast.

In the Girl’s RS:X Amelia Quinlan finished 15^th in the first race but did not finish in the race after and subsequently pulled out.

The competitors are racing in boats supplied by Ovington Boats (Boy's and Girl's 29er), Nautivela (Boy's and Girl's 420), Laser Performance / Maclaren (Boy's and Girl's Laser Radial) and Nacra Sailing (Mixed Nacra 15). The RS:X racers are sailing on their own equipment for 2019.

Racing resumes at 11:00 local time on Thursday 18 July as the competition reaches the latter stages. A single race for each fleet on Friday will bring the 2019 edition of the Hempel Youth Sailing World Championships to a close.

EVENT WEBSITE
Click here for the event website - http://worldsailingywc.org/
 

RESULTS
Click here for result from Gdynia.

AUSTRALIAN TEAM RESULTS

Nacra 15 (Mixed team) Will Cooley and Rebecca Hancock (NSW): 2, 3, 2, 5, 5, 4, 7, (8), 4 – 2nd

29er (Boys) Archie Cropley and Max Paul (NSW): 5, 8, (13), 4, 8, 7, 4, 1, 3 – 2nd

29er (Girls) Alice Buchanan and Dervla Duggan (TAS): 19, (26 UFD), 20, 11, 3, 3, 3, 3 – 9th

420 (Boys) Ryan Littlechild and Jack Ferguson (NSW): (21), 16, 7, 18, 2, 4 – 10^th

420 (Girls) Lily and Matilda Richardson (VIC): 12, 16, (18), 3, 13, 6 – 12^th

Laser Radial (Boys) Zac Littlewood (WA): 26, 6, 1, (58 RET), 2, 1 – 3^rd   

Laser Radial (Girls) Maddie O’Shea (NSW): (40), 31, 29, 2, 2, 9 – 17^th

RS:X (Boys) Hamish Swain (QLD): 11, 12, 21, 23, (24), 24, 22 – 21st

RS:X (Girls) Amelia Quinlan (NSW): 17, 20, 18, 15, (21 DNS), (21 DNC), (21 DNC) – 19^th

HOW TO FOLLOW

Australian Sailing Youth Website

Daily Updates will be posted on the Australian Youth Sailing Website here: https://www.sailingyouth.org.au/home/

See the full team line-up here: https://www.sailingyouth.org.au/youth-worlds/2019-australian-youth-team/

EVENT WEBSITE

Find updates and results on the event website - http://worldsailingywc.org/

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