The Musto regatta was the bid daddy of our trip, as it was a grade two event with 15 international competitors. The competition for this event was top notch with names like Harry Price, who is currently ranked #4 in the world, and George Anyon, ranked 14th in the world. Some of the other big names were Leonard Takahashi, Jelmer Van Beek, Clare Costanzo, and Will Boulden. We were beyond stoked for this line up as it was the best sailors we have ever raced against. We thought to ourselves, “Holy Cow… we are racing against the guys we grew up watching in the Governors Cup, and now we get the chance to race against them! For this event we acquired two new local crew members to fill out our five person team. We had and Australian named Sarah Parker, a very good match racer in her own right whom we raced against in the Harken and a great jib trimmer named Charlotte Porter, who was a Kiwi from the RNZYS (Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron). These two crew additions were huge contributors to our results at this event. They were a big help with everything from calling the course to making the boat go fast every second of every race.
This event was very different from the regattas we are used to sailing. For housing, we were invited to stay aboard member boats in the marina of the CYCA (Cruising Yacht Club of Australia). We had a great time both on and off the water. We were racing in Sydney Harbor, just north of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Bridge, both famous Australian landmarks. The wind was always up and it made for some really great racing. After sailing each day, all the sailors would go and play soccer to unwind and then after, go get food. Sushi was always a popular choice. Unfortunately after day two of the regatta Cameron Wood our main trimmer, badly sprained his ankle while retrieving his wallet after the soccer match and was no longer able to sail. These put us in a very awkward position because we were down a person and were far from the weight limit, which would have been bad news if we didn’t find a replacement. Luckily enough Sarah Parker knew of an available replacement named Ryan Wilmont, who is a fantastic skiff sailor. He showed up the next day and we were off to racing again. We had another amazing race against Leonard Takahashi. We had a total of 6 dial downs in that race, because we were that close together. Three on the first upwind and another three on the second up wind. We started equally and got out left onto the favored side while Leonard even though he was faster was on the disadvantaged side of the course. With his speed, he was able to have us on starboard almost every time we checked back in, all the way up to the top mark. He rounded just ahead of us, and we started a drag race on the first down wind leg. We gybed, he gybed. In this regatta we were sailing with an asymmetrical spinnaker, which means we could not sail as low as we did in the last regatta. By the time we had reached the leeward mark, we had an overlap and forced him out to the disadvantaged side of the course again. Back upwind, we had the same situation as we did on the first upwind. We rounded this time with about two boat lengths behind and worked hard again to make it up. By the time we crossed the finish we were only about a foot behind him. This was another huge morale boost for us. We spoke to Leonard after the race and he said that was some of the best racing he had at these two events. We went on to win more some races that day and finished the round robin in 4th place. The top three boats got to choose who they wanted to race against in the quarters. Unlucky for us, Harry Price, who was the 3rd place boat, picked us for his quarterfinal match. We had some really great pre-starts with him and even won a couple but, were just not able to keep up with him on the downwind legs. We lost the quarters and finished the regatta in 6th.
We want to congratulate Leonard Takahashi on his great sailing and winning both the Harken and the Musto Regattas. We would also like to thank the host clubs, CYCA and RPAYC for hosting such great and fun events and we look forward to sailing there again in the future. We would also like to thank Tom Spithill for his help in finding local crew and for watching out for us during the regatta. We would also like to thank Jordan Reece of CYCA, who helped our crew member when he hurt his ankle and for running the event. We would like to thank the BYC Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation, the Newport Harbor Sailing Foundation, and the Bahia Racing Sail Foundation for generously contributing to our campaign. Finally we would like to thank Mr. Andy Rose for all of his encouragement and for inspiring us to go forth and race everything we can.
JEFFREY PETERSEN on behalf of Saber Racing