Recently I had the amazing opportunity to travel to two very prestigious Australian Yacht Clubs to compete against some of the best youth match racers in the world. Those two events were the Harken and Musto International Youth Match Racing Championships. These two events are two of the most premier events on the youth match racing circuit that sailors under the age of 23 can compete in. The events are back to back in Sydney Australia, are sailed in Elliot 7m with spinnakers and gennakers and generally in great breeze.
The two weeks of action-packed racing starts in Pittwater at the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, which is about a 40 minute drive north of Sydney Harbor. This venue is one of the best places I have every sailed at. The club, food, race management and race course are world class. Pittwater, more commonly known as “shiftwater” is a venue that stresses the sailor’s abilities to manage their course and their opponents, while racing in 20 knots of wind and 50 degree auto- tack shifts. Now, you may ask, why would you ever want to sail in that? Well, it makes you a better sailor very quickly. If your wind reading skills are bad, or you have trouble staying in phase, you are in big trouble. I invited an international team of very experienced match racing crewmembers to race with me at these two events. I had Max Mayol from the US, Sam Barnett and Charlotte Porter from New Zealand and Ed Higson from Great Britian on board with me for the two weeks.
We had a lot of experience, personality, and strength working for us, but we had not developed crew communication, had no practice together, and a variety of tactical opinions at the start working against us. Nonetheless we gave The Harken our best shot and although we had some amazing starts and great sends downwind, we did not come out with the results we wanted. However, we came out with many valuable lessons applicable to match racing but also to sailing and team building in general. I had the added benefit of coming away with a nasty case of acute tonsillitis.
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fter a day off and a trip to the doctor for some relief from my throat pain, we had an immediate turn around to the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, home of the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race. The Musto, held at the CYCA, would be more competitive than the Harken, with a lot more at stake. The winner of this year’s Musto International Youth Match Race would, get an invitation to a Grade One match race in Switzerland and be granted a $3,000 travel grant to attend the event. The Musto was sailed again in the Elliot 7m but, with the spinnaker configuration, which the team and I were far more comfortable with, regardless of the high wind predictions.
The first day was absolutely glamorous racing! Even the losses were a sight to see; with a steady 20 knots we were able to finish a total of 66 matches, the entire round robin in one day. Out on the water until 7 p.m., it was an aggressive but necessary schedule due to the gale force winds forecasted for the following two days of the event. Sure enough on day 2, sailing was cancelled. It was pouring rain and blowing consistently over 30 knots, with gusts over 40. We were grateful for the nice day of rest to recover and enjoy the City for a little bit. Thankfully enough, the Gale forecast was lifted for the third day and we were able to go sailing again. This day was an important day for us.
All those that were not in the top four after the round robin would sail in a repechage round robin to determine the other 4 quarterfinalists. We had a massive day, sailing in 25-30 knots and having a crewmember suffer a dislocated kneecap that sent her to the hospital. That injury forced the team to sail 4 up, significantly under the weight limit in big breeze, for the last two races. We won those last two, by sheer determination. We went on to win 4 of our 7 races after some spectacular wipe outs and won the tie breaker to get the 7th place spot in the quarter finals. We were then chosen by regatta leader and fellow Californian, Frankie Dair to sail against in the quarters. This was a great chance for us, because of the top 4 sailors in the event, he was the only team we had beaten in the Round Robin so, we were confident going into our first race against him. Unfortunately the race was abandoned after the breeze kicked back up and he snapped his forestay. It all came down to the final day to decide who would move on.
Contrary to the seemingly unrelenting breeze we had experienced the days before, the finals day started off blowing 5-7 knots. Of course, it later died to 0 knots and made for some familiar conditions, drift racing against Frankie for our first race of three. In that race we had an even start, three lead changes, a penalty kill, and a 180 degree wind shift. Unfortunately Frankie bested us in the last 30 feet of the final downwind leg with a smoother sail change, which put him one up on us. We were disappointed, but not any less excited to roll into the next race. The wind picked up, but became very unpredictable with huge lulls, puffs and large oscillations. We had a relatively boring prestart, but during our 5 minutes of battle the wind had clocked 40 degrees to the right, making the beat a one-tack beat and Frankie was able to force us to tack. We sailed away from the mark, while he steamed towards it. After that the race it was a parade. He went on to win the race officially knocking us out of the finals. We were disappointed after such close racing with him, but were content with how much we improved over the two weeks and were proud of our development. Eventually everyone that sailed in the repechage lost, and the top 4 carried on as they had finished the first round robin. Frankie went on to win the finals in an epic battle against Jimmy Wilson of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.
I would like to thank my team for all their hard work and support. I also want to thank my club, Balboa Yacht Club and our Head Coach, Mike Pinckney, for helping my team sort through our problems, illness and injuries to develop into better sailors over the two weeks.
I would also like to thank Lee Parks and the U.S Sailing Foundation for their generous grant to support our campaign to these two events.
I would also like to thank the Balboa Yacht Club, the BYC Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation and the Bahia Sail Racing Association for their support of our campaign.