Issue date
The three day Starling Match Racing Championship finished today (Monday) at Glendowie Boating Club where a full complement of twelve sailors from New Zealand’s twelve regions came together on Saturday for a round robin series followed by semi finals and finals.
Winds were up around the maximum for the event of 20 knots and at times exceeded this limit, resulting in an hour lost time off the water. Just one round robin of 66 races was sailed with William Linkhorn (Auckland) returning 11 wins and no losses, leading Alice Noyer defending champion representing Northland, George Gautrey (Wellington) and Callum Radford (Nelson Marlborough).
These four sailed the semi finals best of three series with William and George prevailing to battle for the top two places and Alice and Callum sailing for 3rd and 4th. Alice despatched Callum in two straight races but the best of five finals series went all the way to the last leg of the last race.
These races, which were run in rather gusty conditions, resulted in some exciting racing.
In race two William received a penalty for hitting the starting mark during some tight manoeuvring. As he and George were no more than 50m from the finish and level pegging the penalty still needed to be taken. Somehow William put enough distance between himself and George by luffing into a squall, that he was able to do the penalty turn and win by 20cm.
Races were at two wins apiece going into the final race of the event. Both boats were well over the line at the start and William managed to push George outside the pin end mark before leading back to cross the start line correctly. George struggled hard to throw off William's cover with a false tack which worked but William lead round the top mark.
A squall near the bottom mark saw both boats nearly capsize but William recovered well to lead for the second round despite several challenges by George, to win by only three boat lengths, and in the process winning the championship with three wins and two losses.
This is the first time Glendowie Boating Club has run this event, at least for many years and they are to be congratulated for a splendid regatta. The six Starling Class Association boats once again proved a real benefit providing equally matched boats without the sailors having to tow theirs from their home towns.
This event goes from strength to strength and is becoming a popular regatta on the Starling calendar. Thanks to umpires Mike Alison, John Rountree, Frankie Lardies and Gareth Moore without whom there would have been no event.
Final results
1 William Linkhorn (Auckland)
2 George Gautrey (Wellington)
3 Alice Noyer (Northland)
4 Callum Radford (Nelson / Marlborough)
5 Ellie Lane (North Harbour)
6 Sam Broome (East Coast)
7 Zak Merton (Bay of Plenty)
8 Andrew Miller (South Canterbury)
9 Taylor Balogh (Canterbury)
10 Jason Hewitt (Waikato / Thames)
11 Lyneche Simkin (Western Districts)
12 Fletcher Meyer (South)
