The Warren Jones International Youth Match Racing Championship is an event hosted jointly between the Royal Perth Yacht Club, the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, and Swan River Sailing, in Perth Waters, Western Australia. Being one of the most prestigious, difficult, and intense youth match racing events in the world, my team and I were super excited to have been invited to race in this event. Among the competitors list of under 25 sailors, were names like Will Boulden, Harry Price, Nick Engot-Johnson, Tom Grimes, and Matt Whitfield, all of whom are ranked inside the top 30 in the Open World Match Race Rankings.
One of the most difficult things about this event is the travel to and from the event. We had to travel over 25 hours to get to Perth, but once we had arrived, we understood why it is one of the most legendary sailing venues in all of sailing. Every day was over 80 degrees, sunny, and had great breeze ranging from 8-16 knots. The regatta was sailed in Foundation 36’s which are large 5-7 person keelboats, that are comparable to Long Beach Yacht Club’s Catalina 37’s. The race course was a small bounded area, inside Perth waters, next to Elizabeth Quay, or Downtown Perth. Racing city front was quite the experience. With 8 boats all within 1000 square yards of runway, you could say the racing area was a bit tight, but made for an incredible challenge. Every high level match race regatta has its own characteristics that make it unique. For instance the Governors Cup has rolling swell, Sydney, Australia has Ferry Boat Traffic, and Perth has an extremely small race course. All in all, it made for some great racing.
The format was a double round robin, with a semi finals and finals knockout series. This is good news and bad news. Good news is that all the teams get to do a lot of sailing, the bad news is it forces you to operate at a high level all week, and even after that, it comes down to tie breakers in a good fleet like we had.
We started off the first round robin strong, taking wins off of the more experienced teams like Egnot-Johnson, Boulden, Grimes, and Whitfield, and ended the series with a record of 7-4 after a point loss to damage. But, with our wins against the other sailors, we were seeded in second, in a four way tie to round out the top half of the fleet. We were pumped coming off the water of Day two. For our rookie, pickup team to come out of the gates swinging like that was a huge feat, and we were proud of how we handled ourselves on the water. Unfortunately, the first half to our second round robin, was not quite as impressive and we failed to beat the big guys again. We fell two positions in the overall standings.
With three races left on the Final day of sailing before the knockouts, we had to either win them all, or at a very minimum beat Will Boulden. Unfortunately, we could not do either and missed out of the semi finals, falling victim to several tie breakers. No matter how disappointed we were with this result, we were still proud of how we sailed against these teams, especially in our first year of this event. We learned so much about the boats, the venue, and even ourselves.
I would first off like to thank my crew for an amazing week; Daniel Pegg on the Bow, Jules Costanzo in the Pit, Max Brennan on trim, Zac Quinlan on the main, and my tactician Annie Scholten, we all came together so well, and left it all out on the water.
I would like to also thank The Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation, The Newport Harbor Sailing Foundation, Bahia Sail Racing Association, and the Competitive Edge Fund for their support of our sailing. We truly could not sail these events without their help. And Finally, I would like to thank the host clubs for an amazing event and for giving us the opportunity to come down and race. The team and I know we go down and race the “Wojo” again some day.