With Auckland under big high pressure for the weekend beautiful blue skies but a distinct lack of breeze were the feature of both days for the 2024 NS ILCA Freshwater Champs at Pupuke.

A decent fleet of 30, pretty evenly split between ILCA 7 and 6, turned up on Saturday morning, but others who were expected were clearly put off by the very light, and unfortunately accurate, forecast for the weekend.

On Saturday race officer Garth Briden managed to get a couple of short races for both fleets completed in a very light SE breeze, what we could generously call gusting 5 knots, before the breeze collapsed almost completely just after the start of the third race for the ILCA 7. They struggled around to complete a shortened third race but that was the end of the breeze and the racing on Saturday.

Sunday was if anything even tougher, with little puffs of an E'ish whisper that never got to much more that 3 knots. Everyone was keen to give it a try and 2 drifters were completed for both fleets to give a series result.

In the ILCA 7 rising U21 star George Pilkington ended up dominating the weekend with 4 wins, assisted by his expertise with roll tacking and gybing. He was followed by open sailors Max Faulkner from Tauranga, who cleaned up the first race on Saturday and a consistent Eroni Leilua, who will be representing Samoa in this years Olympics. Leading Master in 4th overall was Kris Decke from Whangarei while Mike Keeton took out the GGM's in spite of all his GGM ailments.

The ILCA 6 fleet was certainly one of high calibre, with numerous national champions and representatives competing as well as the next batch of up and coming talent. The racing was fierce and there were four different race winners for the four races completed. Conditions required a combination of patience, resilience and good eye-sight to spot the puffs on the glassy lake…which clearly Greta Pilkington displayed an abundance of.

Race one saw Beau Utting from RAYC recover from a difficult start to hook into a wonderful left hander and take the lead through the finish with Greta Pilkington, fresh off the plane from Europe, coming in hot in second place with NZ Youth Rep Zach Stibbe in third. In race two Fiji Olympian Sofia Morgan bolted out of the gate, leading through to a third of the way up the last beat when a left hand shift was picked up by Greta who won the race with aging battler Phil Wild in second and up and coming youth Sam Clarke sneaking in to round out the top 3.

The first race on Sunday was started in negligible, gusting not much more and provided a great demonstration on how to roll tack…at which this years youth rep Zach Stibbe proved to be best in the ILCA 6's and took out the race with ever consistent Greta in second and Sofia in for a well-deserved third. Race four got away in a blustery maybe 4 knots in which Sofia got away to a lead however a combination of lulls and puffs saw the fleet congeal at the bottom mark after which Phil Wild tacked out into a new "breeze" (read more than 1 knot), that came down the left of the course and lead through to the finish holding off the highly determined Greta with Sam Clark stealing his way into third.

So overall Greta Pilkington made it a quinella for the Pilkington family for the weekend. Phil Wild was 2nd overall and dominated the masters, with youth Sam Clarke an excellent 3rd overall. Leading youth girl was Kate Rasmussen by just a single point from Chloe Turner.

Plenty of sausages and prizes kept everyone happy after racing thanks to principal sponsors Burnsco and NZ Sailing.

ILCA 6 Results
 

ILCA 7 Results