Issue date
Laurie Jury, Francesco Bruni, Will Tiller and Gavin Brady are through to semi final in the New Zealand Match Racing Championships.
Seven flights were completed this morning and the top eight skippers went through to the Quarter Finals this afternoon.
Will Tiller and his team of Bradley Farrand, Harry Thurston and Shaun Mason were undefeated on the water today winning all of their five races, including a win over Francesco Bruni who failed to complete his penalty turn handing Tiller the win. This put Tiller at the top of the table at the completion of the Round Robin with a total of 12 wins.
Next on 10 wins overall was Italy’s Francesco Bruni, Gavin Brady, Laurie Jury and David Hazard.
After his loss to Tiller, Francesco Bruni recorded just one more loss in the afternoon to young gun David Hazard where both boats were locked together coming into the finish in extreme light airs conditions. Hazard’s gennakers filled just before the finish giving him a one second win over Bruni.
Hazard and his young crew representing the RNZYS Lion Foundation Youth Training Programme had a great day on the water winning four out of their six races this morning’s with losses only to the much higher ranked Tiller and Brady.
Gavin Brady also had 4 wins this morning with only 2 losses to Jury and Scott Dickson. Rounding off the top eight were Chris Steele, Rod Davis and Scott Dickson.
Into the Quarter Finals and highest placed Tiller chose to race Scott Dickson, whom he beat 2 – nil by 16 seconds and 11 seconds.
Next was the Youth Programme Graduate, Gavin Brady who chose to race the Youth Programme team helmed by David Hazard. The youngsters put in a good effort but lost 2 – nil.
Italy’s Francesco Bruni chose to race ETNZ’s Rod Davis. Davis lost both races by the narrowest margin of just two seconds.
Bruni and Davis go back a long way with Rod Davis coaching Bruni in Match Racing ten years ago. Bruni said “It is strange to race against Rod. It was hard to pick but we chose on points and that made it interesting for us. Rod was ahead a couple of times and the results don’t show that we had to come back by a few boat lengths. It was very close racing.”
Rod Davis meanwhile said he had enjoyed the regatta and especially tussling with Bruni this afternoon.
“Personally getting back into small keelboats has been great” He laughed noting it had been a few years since racing Lasers and smaller keel boats. “The momentum of the bigger keelers like the MRXs carries you but in the smaller boats you have to do a lot more manoeuvres. We are ready to start the regatta now. We have really enjoyed it though. We had some great wins and some great losses.”
That left the final pairing of Laurie Jury and Chris Steele. In the first race Jury won by four seconds and in the second Steele was a lot closer on the final run, but Jury managed to just get him at the finish by two seconds.
So with all of the Quarter Final being completed 2-zip the Race management team concluded racing for the day and headed back into Squadron base.
Racing is scheduled to begin tomorrow morning at 10am with the Semi Finals series between the top four of Tiller, Brady, Bruni and Jury.
Flight Twelve
Brady beat Hazard by 30s
Osborne beat Davis by 28s
Wood beat Steele by 8s
Tiller beat Middleton by 1m13s
Bruni beat Appelgren by 49s
Flight Thirteen
Jury beat Brady by 5s
Bullot beat Piriou by 50s
Hazard beat Dickson by 12s
Wood beat Middleton by 5s
Tiller beat Osborne by 29s
Flight Fourteen
Brady beat Appelgren by 1m03s
Davis beat Piriou by 47s
Hazard beat Steele by 53s
Bruni beat Jury DNF
Dickson beat Bullot by 53s
Flight Fifteen
Brady beat Osborne by 22s
Tiller beat Hazard by 1m
Dickson beat Davis DNF
Bruni beat Middleton by 47s
Jury beat Steele by 1m40s
Flight Sixteen
Appelgren beat Piriou by 31s
Bullot beat Wood by 2s
Tiller beat Bruni DNF
Dickson beat Osborne by 45s
Hazard beat Jury by 5s\
Flight Seventeen
Brady beat Bullot by 37s
Steele beat Piriou by 53s
Davis beat Middleton by 32s
Wood beat Appelgren by 32s
Hazard beat Bruni by 1s
Flight Eighteen
Bullot beat Appelgren by 3s
Osborne beat Piriou by 7s
Steele beat Middleton by 20s
Davis beat Wood by 10s
Dickson beat Brady by 45s
Flight Nineteen
Tiller beat Jury by 40s
Quarter Finals Results
QF Flight One
Jury beat Steele 4s
Bruni beat Davis 2s
Brady beat Hazard 28s
Tiller beat Dickson 16s
QF Flight Two
Jury beat Steele by 2s
Bruni beat Davis by 2s
Brady beat Hazard by 11s
Tiller beat Dickson by 11s
Final Placings
5th David Hazard (NZL RNZYS Lion Foundation Youth Training Programme)
6th Chris Steele (NZL 36 Below / RNZYS)
7th Scott Dickson (USA Long Beach Yacht Club)
8th Rod Davis (NZL RNZYS)
9th David Wood (NZL RNZYS)
10th Mike Bullot (NZL MBSC)
11th Sam Osborne (NZL RNZYS)
12th Hampus Appelgren (SWE)
13th Tugdual Piriou (CNC Noumea)
14th Adam Middleton (RPNYC)
