More top results for South Island sailors with Ryan Amlehn (Nelson YC) and Taylor Burn (Queen Charlotte YC) coming 1st and 2nd at the North American 4.7 Laser Champs at South Beach YC, San Francisco. In the 6 race series Ryan won all the 5 races he competed in, with Taylor winning the remaining race and 2nd in most others. A truly commanding performance from the pair.

Liam McDonald (Murrays Bay SC) was 7th to put all NZL sailors in the top 10. The 33 boat fleet was mostly made up of sailors frm the US and Canada.

These sailors will be joined by Keith Inglis and Trent Ripley as they move on to the 4.7 World Champs, also in San Francisco starting today 26th July.

North American 4.7 Champs Results

Sam Meech blitzed the field in Rochell to become the 2011 Junior Standard World Champion.

Check out the stats ...

A 147 boat fleet ad 12 races sailed.

Sam scored 8 x 1st's, 3 x 2nds and a 5th. He got to drop a 2nd! A phenomenal gross total of 19 and net 12 puttng him 9 points clear of Alex Mills-Barton and 18 ahead of Martin Evans, both from Great Britain.

Sam has been training with Andrew Murdoch in recent months, which doesn't seem to have done any harm.

Spencer Loxton finished 30th, including 2 x 2nds and a 4th

Micahel Cate was 56th including 3 top 10s but 2 DNFs meaning a 28 and 39 counted.

Articles at  sailworld.com

All results at:  http://www.srr-sailing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/w_final_standard_s...

Photo care of John Bullot and sailworld

Molly Meech and Michael Cate from the YNZ Youth squad travelled with coach Ian Neely to represent NZ in the Laser Radial at the ISAF Youth Champs at Zadar, Croatia on 7-16th July.
Light airs were the big challenge for the first 2/3rds of the regatta. Both sailors recorded their best results as the breeze strengthened.
Michael finished 8th in a fleet of 49 with a mixed bag of results, getting himslef in the top 10 with a run of 2, 8, 3, 2 in races 8 to 11.
Molly was 12th out of 49.

Other top 10 NZL results were 5th SL16 mixed crew cat, 6th 29er, 9th womens RSX sailboard
A rundown on NZL results at sailword
Offical reports and results at ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship

Michael heads on to La Rochell in France for the Under 21 Laser World Championships 16th-23rd July and Laser Radial Youth World Championships 24th - 31st July.

Another great result for Josh Junior who was third Laser behind Groteluschen Simon and Phillipp Buhl - both from Germany.
Josh managed this with consistency, two bullets, and all but one of 9 races in the top 10.

Andy Maloney had two 2nds and a 4th, but other results in the teens left him 12th overall.

The Kiwi women Radial sailors were back at Takapuna training, electing to miss Kiel this year.

All results at http://race-results.kielerwoche.de

The 2011 Sail for Gold regatta in Weymouth was always going to a major ranking regatta for the NZ sailing team in the run up to the Olympic year. A chance to benchmark within the team and with the best sailors from other countries.

So a 2nd for Andrew Murdoch in the Laser was a fantastic outcome, reinforced by an 8th for Andy Maloney. Sam Meech 19th, Josh Junior 23rd, John Bullot 29th and Spencer Loxton 42nd.

Sara Winther kept her head to make the mdeal race and finish 9th overall.

Great NZL results in other classes

• Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie won the 470 womens (whoo hoo!)
• JP Tobin 2nd RSX mens, with Tom Ashley 9th
• Dan Slater 6th Finn
• Tim Dempsey and Jan Apel 8th SKUD18
• Hamish Pepper and Craig Monk 9th Star
• Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders 10th 470 mens
• Peter Burling and Blair Tuke 12th 49er

Reports and results at www.skandiasailforgoldregatta.co.uk and sail-world.com

Miranda Powrie's campaign is on track with a great result qualifying for the medal race at the Delta Lloyd regatta.
She tells the story best ...

A good article summarising Sara's career (so far) at SailWorld.com
http://www.sail-world.com/NZ/index.cfm?SEID=0&Nid=83427&SRCID=0&ntid=94&tickeruid=0&tickerCID=0

She's making it a habit.

Following on from gold in the Prince Sofia Regatta in March, Sara has won again in Heyres at the Semaine Olympique Francaise.
She had a 5 point lead over Frances Sarah Steyeart lead going into medal race, then started badly, only slowly clawing back during the race. But after a strong final downwind to the finish she surged past two boats on the last wave. Just enough to secure victory with two points.
In the same strong fleet Miranda Powrie was pleased with a 15th in her first year back in the class, making improvements in first beat tactics but losing ground downhill.
Mike Bullot was the best of the NZL men with a 8th overall and 6 of 11 races in the top five. Josh Juior was 12th, Andy Maloney 16th, Andrew Murdoch 23rd and Sam Meech 55th (and a 1st in his final race).

More details at

• sarawinther.com
• mirandapowrie.com
• The event site sof.ffvoile.net
• www.yachtingnz.org.nz

Whoo hoo!
After a slower start early in the regatta Sara Winther found her form in the middle races to win the Laser Radials at 42nd princess Sofia Regatta in Palma, Mallorca. A most impressive result against some big names including Evi Van Acker, Paige Riley and Marit Bouwmeester.

Sara's perspective at www.sarawinther.com

Sam Meech must be elated with a 4th in the mens Lasers. He had only Paul Goodison (GBR), Tom Slingsby (AUS) and Nick Thomson (GBR) in front of him. The strength of the NZ squad was on show again with Andrew Murdoch and Andy Maloney 6th and 7th and Mike Bullot 8th.

In other fleets Jo Aleh and Biacha Barbarich-Bacher had a stunning regatta to win gold a full 10 points (net) ahead of silver. And Dan Slater was 4th in the Finn.

Reports and full results at www.trofeoprincesasofia-mapfre.org