Yachting Australia

Day one of the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships 2002 has been completed with Australia holding first place in the 29er Girls and second place in the 29er Boys classes.

Racing is being held in the waters of Mahone Bay, near the Nova Scotia town of Lunenberg in eastern Canada. An opening ceremony was held last night on the waterfront in historic Lunenberg which is a UNESCO world heritage listed town with a long history of ship building and maritime activity.

The Australian team arrived in Lunenberg one week ago in order to acclimatise to the change in time zone and having chartered boats were the only team able to sail on the race course prior to the regatta. With boat allocation taking place only two days before the first races all of the other sailors had to wait before taking their first look at the venue.

Moderate to fresh sea breezes were the prevailing winds when the team first arrived, however, over the last couple of days a low pressure system has moved into a position just to the east of Nova Scotia which has produced unsettled weather with rain and generally light easterly winds. Today’s two races were held in five to ten knot North Easterly winds with a low sloppy sea. The shiftiness of the wind and variations in pressure made the conditions a real challenge particularly on the inshore single handed and sailboard courses.

On all course areas, OCS’ played a part in the standings as a number of competitors put in one top three result only to follow it up with an OCS. There was one protest which saw the disqualification of the NZL 29er Girls from the first race, which they won.

Australian results on day one were:

Mistral Boys (James Grunfelder) 11,13

Laser Boys (Tom Slingsby) 6, 11

Byte Girls (Krystal Weir) 6, 11

29er Boys (Nathan Outridge/Ayden Menzies) 1, 4

29er Girls (Elise Rechichi/Rayshelle Martin) 2, 1

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