Following his bronze medal in the Laser at the Rio Olympics, it's not surprising to hear Sam Meech will receive a Performance Award at the Volvo YNZ Excellence awards.
Congratulations again to Sam.

More details on all awards at YNZ.

Big excitement as Sam Meech won the Bronze medal in the Laser in Rio.

It's hard to believe we haven't had one before. But very nice for Sam that 4 years of effort have paid off so nicely.

Sam's 10 prelim race results indicated how tricky the conditions could be in Rio
19, 3, 5, 6, 14, 17, 13, 6, 12, then 1st (nice)
That placed him 3rd going into the single medal race, where a cool head delivered a 4th in the race and the Bronze medal. WhooHoo! - in a nail biting kind of way.

NZ sailors in other clases;

• Blair Tuke and Pete Burling locked up the 49er Gold before the mdeal race - awesome.
• 49erFX girls - Alex Maloney and Molly Meech get Silver. They peaked at the right time with a fantastically sailed regatta.
• Womens 470 - Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie also get Silver. Filthy luck with a UFD and earlier lost protest put gold just beyond reach. But the points were so close they had to sail a very good medal race to get 2nd and not 5th.
• Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders were 4th just 3 points shy of a Bronze medal - an amazing result really.
• Finn sailor Josh Junior kept his cool to climb back to 7th overall after a patchy start to the regatta, then an impressive come back.
• Mens 470 - Daniel Wilcox and Paul Snow-Hansen were 10th - after a 6th in the medal race.

So all NZ sailors made their top 10 medal race. Which is amazing in itself.

Then 4 crews go on to win a medal, playing a big part in NZ's biggest every medal tally at one Olympics. What a credit to all the sailors, coaches and the whole YNZ Olympic program.

All Rio Sailing Results on Google

Our NZL sailors at the 2016 Standard Masters worlds at Riviera Nayarit in Mexico.
Left to right: Rob Woodward, Nick Page, Tony Nicholson, Bob Blakey, Andrew Dellabarca, Gavin Dagley, Luke Carter, Garth Briden and Greg Simon.

Andrew holds his cube for 3rd in the Masters division.
Gavin won the Grand Master s sailing for AUS. But Nick noticed a NZ sticker on his boat somewhere and he is in our photo - which sort of makes it an NZL win.

Everyone was saying it was well run, a fantastic venue and the hardest competition they have sailed against.

Full Results

Congratulations to Sam Meech, who has been selected to represent NZ in the mens Laser at the Rio Olympics.

Josh Junior has been selected in the Finn. The mens Laser and Finn are the last sailing classes to be selected.

More on the Yachting New Zealand site.

Sailing for NZ Olympic selection is a tough sport. Only one sailor can be selected in each class.

The mens Laser spot was a hard fought battle between Sam Meech and Andy Maloney. Either sailor would be a top contender in Rio. Sam, Andy and Mike Bullot have consistently been in the top 10 at international regattas over the past 2 years. With Tom Saunders steadily closing in.

Sara Winther will be disappointed to miss selection in the Radial as she sat very close to the threshold laid down by YNZ.
And Sussanah Pyatt has been improving her position on the international stage.

Quite a few NZL crews at the Coupe du Monde de Voile at Hyeres.
Regatta site results and reports at swc.ffvoile.com.
YNZ report for the NZL sailors.

NZL in the mens Laser

• Sam Meech had a great regatta to dinish 2nd just a few points behind the German sailor Philipp Buhl.
• Andy Malony finished 5th - coming home strongly with 2, 7, 2.
• Andrew Mackenzie 26th

In the Radials

• Sara Winther was 11th

In other clases

• Peter Burling and Blair Tuke had an other decisive win in the 49er - being 48 points ahead and unbeatable before the medal race.
• Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie were 4th on the 470
• Josh Junior 4th in the Finn and Andrew Murdoch 12th
• Alex Maloney and Molly Meech  were 9th in the 49erFX

We are part way through a busy round of Laser World Champs in Riviera Nayarit, Mexico.
Sailors report it is a beautiful sailing venue.

Womens Radial and Masters Radial are complete, with Mens Open and Masters Standard yet to come.

All results and and report at www.laserworlds2016.org.

For NZL sailors in the Women's Radial

• Sara Winther 11th, as she continues to push for an Olympic spot
• Susannah Pyatt 19th - she should be happy with her best worlds result to date.

In the Masters Radial

• Scott Leith won the apprentices again - with a fanatstic scoreline of 10 firsts and 2 seconds (which he could drop)

• Richard Blakey 2nd Master loved it over there. Masters and apprentices sailed in a combined fleet - which made things more interesting.
• Ed Tam 5th Master
• Don Christie 24th Master

• Hamish Atkinson 17th Grand Master
• Roger Winton 26th Grand Master
• Bruce Jones 32nd Grand Master

Andrew Maloney displayed great consistency to win the Trofeo S.A.R. Princesa Sofía, just 2 points ahead of sailing legnd Robert Scheidt.
Andrew McKenzie was a creditable 34th in the 152 boat fleet.

In the Radials Sussanah Pyatt was 30th and Sara Winther 32nd out of 84.

And Josh Junior won in the Finn.

• All results
• Photos & Video

Andrew's campaign update - Mixing it up in 2016, including a report on the NZ Nationals and European Champs.

The wind gods settled in with winds up to 8 knots from the East making for some highly tactical close racing. First start landed up as a general recall as boats charged over the line before the start gun but Garth Briden and Jock Bilger, our race officers gathered in the exuberant jockeys sending them gallivanting on their way with a successful restart. Four races were held in these moderate but tricky winds requiring a fair chunk of concentration to out manoeuvre the agile fleet. The winner for the day was Andrew Childs from Taipa Sailing Club in the Standard rig, he had travelled down 4 hours on the day to pick up the coveted trophy which he missed out on last year.  He was followed closely by Luke Deegan from SSANZ and David Giles from Weir Wood Sailing Club in the UK. The Radials was won by PLSC’s very own Kevin Welsh, Roger Winton from Onerahi Yacht Club was second and 3rd as well as 1st Junior Radial was Loic Eisenring from PLSC, with the Radial Women’s fleet taken out by PLSC’s Shaaron McKee.

• Results
• Photos

Super impressive to see 4 NZLs in the 10 top Lasers that sailed the medal race at the Miami Gold Cup.
And congratulations to Sam Meech who was the leading Kiwi into the final day before finishing 3rd in the race to jump to 3rd in the regatta.
Final results were;

• Sam Meech 3rd
• Thomas Saunders 7th
• Andy Maloney 9th
• Mike Bullot 10th

Also amazing to see Robert Scheidt win the regatta at 42 - more than twice the age of the impressive young Perth sailor Mathew Werne.

Results

Youtube Video of all medal races (Laser Standard race from about 2 hr 52 Min mark)

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