25 Radial and 14 Standards enjoyed 2 days of great racing in Napier at the 2017 North Island champs, with 4 solid races on Saturday and 3 on Sunday leaving most sailors tired but happy with the weekend. There were sailors from throughout the NI, with a particularly strong team from Worser Bay there to challenge the rest. On both days we had light sea breezes, varying from about 6 to 12 knots, with choppy seas and overcast skies. The cloud limited the strength of the breeze particularly on Sunday and meant that it was patchier and shiftier than normal. This however made for great racing, with no lead ever completely safe and many place changes throughout the racing.

 

The sailor who really mastered the conditions was defending NI Radial champion and reigning U17 World Radial Champ Josh Armit. He dominated most of the Radial races, only blinking once to let U17 rival Luke Cashmore claim the bullet in race 6. Luke was a strong 2nd overall, putting together a very consistent series. 3rd and 4th, locked together as has been the case in several regattas recently, were Youth girls Olivia Christie and Annabelle Rennie-Younger. They finished equal on points, with Olivia coming out on top this time by virtue of the tie-break. Third Youth boy was Albert Stanley, from the strong Worser Bay team and 3rd Youth girl Samantha Stock from Pt Chev.

 

Ed Tam (M) was the leading master in the Radials in 6th overall, followed by Georgi Yankov (M) in 11th and Bruce Jones (GM) in 14th. 

 

In the Standards no one was able to dominate. Going into the last race there were 4 sailors still with a theoretical chance of winning the series. In the end, defending champion Andrew Dellabarca (M) showed his class, winning the final race to take the contest by two points from now Rotorua based Apprentice Kent Copplestone. Third two points further back was Cris Brodie (M) with first GM Nick Page a further point back in 4th. It was great to see the fleet bolstered by a mixture of old faces returning to the fleet and some new faces as well.  Mark Tillet from Manly was getting in some early practice for the 2019 Nationals, which will be held at his home club, and newcomers Kirk Vosper and Michael Coutts both reckoned that they enjoyed the challenge. 

 

The strong fleets this weekend at both Napier and at the South Island Champs held the same weekend at Naval Point indicate that we should have a good fleet for the Nationals so if you have not made a commitment yet get organised, get entered and we look forward to seeing you in Christchurch in January.

 

- Nick Page