Josh P, Jackson M, Tim C and myself headed over to Australia to compete in 3  regattas. Sydney International regatta, Go for Gold and Sail Melbourne.

I would have to say that we travelled 5 star. We had cool cars and some flash accommodation thanks to John Coltman's admin. In Sydney we were staying in this apartment building in Bondi Junction. We had a wicked view over Sydney harbour, not only did our apartment have 3 bath rooms, a full kitchen and sky, we also had the use of a spa, gym, games room, pool, and even a tennis court. How cool is that?

Sydney was tricky, shifty, choppy and had a lot of ferries. This made for exciting racing and while I was spending a bit of time upside down Tim managed to pick up 3rd in the regatta which is a fantastic result. Melbourne was different, with big-ish waves and with a bit of breeze on that tended to oscillate a little more slowly than in Sydney, where it was just all over the show.

Go For Gold was my favourite regatta only because it showed that all my windy weather training had paid off as I managed to beat Michel Bullot overall. I could not manage to continue this form though to Sail Melbourne however. I won the first race and finished second in the last race but my results in between were not as good meaning I finished 12th overall.

The tour was very worthwhile. I had spent the last few months leading into the tour focusing on match racing. As a result I was a bit rusty in the laser so the close racing in the three regattas gave me a great opportunity to get back into dinghy race mode. The focus now is on training for a month in Wellington as I build up to the Laser Nationals and Sail Auckland which are the selection events for the NZL team for the 2009 Laser World Championships.

I would like to say a big thanks to Heleen, Joe, and Nicole who helped look after us while we were over in Aussie.

Cheers Josh

30th November 2008
2008 New Zealand Match Racing National

At the start of the year we had the goal of getting on the podium at the Match Racing Nationals, this was before we heard who was competing. As you may know the list of entries included Dean Barker (Emirates Team New Zealand), Ben Ainslie (triple gold medallist and 2 time world sailor of the year), Rod Davis Former World number 1 and Olympic Gold medallist) as well as Adam Minoprio ( World Tour regular). We believed the competition was probably better than the average World Tour event. After finding all this out about 2 months before the regatta we made our goal top 6.  

We started the regatta off against Ainslie we managed a clean pre start with Ainslie tacking off our hip heading out to the right hand side off the course. The right hand became massively favoured and Ainslie won easily. Next up Davis, He did us in the pre start and sailed away to win convincingly.  

From left: Deano, Matty, Eddy, JJ, Christopher

Although we had started the regatta badly we believed we had the potential to pull out an upset or two. This happened on day 2 when we beat Davis by a minute. This race was a turning point for us in a way, we had sorted out a few communication problems and proceeded to win 4 races in the second Round Robin. 

We finished up in 8^th place and having learnt heaps. We are now looking forward to next year and hopefully we can mix it with the big boys. We would like to thank Dean and Eddy for joining us in this regatta, they helped us a lot in terms of big boat dynamics and boat handling. Also thanks to the Port Nicholson Yachting Trust for helping us to compete. 

Cheers Matty
Wellington Match

The boys in full action.

The 2008 Harken Youth International Match Racing Championships Is held off Pittwater, Sydney. This regatta only really had one consistency, it was damn shifty. Other than that we had some races cancelled due to a lack of wind and some cancelled because of too much wind.

Rowan joined Matt, Chris and I to try and win this regatta. Unfortunately for us the wind didn't play ball and we only managed to get one round robin away. This was a problem for us because we lost a couple of races we shouldn't have. As you have probably read we lost a race to Amy Lee and her girls team. They did sail extremely well but that loss shouldn't have happened, we also lost to James Williamson after leading him for some of the race. But that happens ahh??

The final result was very close with only one point separating 1st though to 4th.

1st   RPAYC   Tommy Spithall   10wins
2nd   RNZYS   Adrian Short       10wins
3rd   RPNYC   Josh Junior         9 wins
4th   CYCA     Will Ryan            9wins

We would like to say a big thank you to Wellington Youth Yachitng Scheme for their support. We would also like to say thanks to Bo and Tina who hosted us in Pittwater, it was great. After now having placed 3rd twice in this regatta we are looking forward to next year were we can hopefully win it......

Wipe out

P.S. This was a controlled wipe out. We were just heading in and a 35 knot gust came, the rig looked like it was about to drop. Matt is down to leeward in the back corner (under water ha-ha)

We would like to give a big thanks to the Port Nicholson Yachting Trust and Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club/Wellington Yachting Association for supporting us to attend this regatta and for making it possible to get up to speed as a team. Also a big thanks to the Manning family in Auckland who put us up and looked after us. We would also like to say a big thanks to everyone who left a comment on the comments page, we love reading them. For each day's report you can check out the comments page.


Wellington match fighting for position while rounding the top mark.
  
 

9 November 2008
3 days to go


From left, Rowan, Jonathan, Matthew, Chris, Josh

3 days to go and we had a great last training session. we are ready to go and show New Zealand what we can do. Our flights are booked, Accommodation is sorted, entry fee is paid, Lets GO!!!!!

4 November 2008
8 days to go, and research

The 2008 New Zealand Keelboat National Championships is the first regatta of three that Wellington Match will be competing in this November. The New Zealand Keelboat Nationals are to be held out off the Royal Akarana Yacht Club. RAYC has brought 11 new Platu 25s (also known as Beneteau 25s). Here are some pictures of what the yachts look like.
  

3 November 2008
Wellington to take on Emirates Team New Zealand, Olympic gold medalist and World number 4.

Wellington Match has seen four of the expected entries for the 2008 New Zealand Match Racing Nationals Championships. 

• Dean Barker (skipper of ETNZ), 
• Rod Davis (ETNZ sailing coach, NZ Olympic coach, last year's national champ), 
• Ben Ainslie (3 time Olympic gold medalist and skipper of Team Origin),
• Young super star Adam Minoprio (currently lying 4th on the world match racing tour)

Should be a fun regatta!

  
3 Nov 2008
9 days to go!!!!!

9 days till the line up of regattas begins. We are so Excited!!!

The Wellington MRX development squad has been training hard over the last 6 weeks, trying to master the sailing of bigger boats. The development squad was set up this year with Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Yacht Club and the Youth Yachting Scheme. The aim of the squad is to take sailors to the next step. Developing the older youth scheme sailor's skills in bigger boats, so that they can then head over to Europe and compete successfully. The ultimate goal of this squad is to have a team competing on the world match racing tour.

The 2008 squad has learnt heaps and we now think we are ready for the New Zealand match racing nationals and the New Zealand keel boat nationals. We would like to thank Richard Dreverman and Edmund Tam for their help getting us up to speed over the last 6 weeks.

22 Oct 2008
So what's the plan?

We have got a big couple of months coming up. Our first regatta will be the New Zealand keel boat nationals in Auckland (Rowan Swanson, Jonathan Clough, Chris Jones, Mathew Steven and I will be competing in this one. Here's what Yachting New Zealand had to say about the competition.

Keelboat Championships to feature exceptional field

Entries have now been finalized for the 2008 New Zealand National Keelboat Championships to be held from 12 to 16 November 2008 and hosted by the Royal Akarana Yacht Club in the new fleet of Platu 25 one-design keelboats. Nearly all skippers are past or present national or world champions in various sailing disciplines. The field including Emirates Team New Zealand with Dean Barker at the helm, the 2007 National Platu 25 Champion of Thailand, Scott Duncanson, and Andrew Wills, current national champ in both the Young 88 and Farr 1020 classes and past Etchell World Champion. Full list of entrants and more details here

Then we fly straight to Australia to compete in the Harken Youth Match Racing Championships sailed out of Royal Price Alfred Yacht Club. Rowan Swanson, Chris Jones, Matthew Steven and I will be competing in this regatta. From there we fly straight back to Auckland for the New Zealand Match Racing National Championships where Dean Stanley, Eddy Tam, Chris Jones, Matthew Steven and I are really looking forward to the competition. So why is Deano sailing???? Well he can’t be that bad, and he is doing a good job of getting our team up to weight. Ha-ha.

We all come back to Wellington for a few days and then Josh P, Tim Coltman, Jackson McFarlane and I head over to Sydney to compete in the grade 1 Sydney International Regatta, we then fly straight down to Melbourne to compete in the Go For Gold regatta, sailed out of Black Rock Yacht Club. We then wheel our boats just down the road to Sandringham Yacht Club to compete in Sail Melbourne which is the first of 8 regattas in the World Sailing Cup Series for 2008-9.

Updates will be posted daily on the comments page, so come and follow all the action. First regatta starts on the 12th of November, "see you there".

 

2nd October 2008
Wellington Region Sports Ambassador role

Guess which one I am?

Being a Wellington Sports ambassador is awesome, we get to travel around Wellington and enjoy helping at different sports events. On Thursday the 2nd of October, we went to a buggy walk. 400 parent and kids walked around the botanical gardens, My job was to dress up as banana's in pajamas, it  was a bit of a fun. The best event I have been to is probably the New Zealand Primary School Cross Country Running Championships. Those kids run so fast.

4th-7th Sept 2008
ISAF Nations Cup NZ team selection trials

(Report by Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron)

"Day One - Thursday 4th September
The open division got underway this morning under a sunny sky and light north easterly breezes. Conditions proved challenging for the sailors and also for Race Officer Gerald Flynn with  the constantly changing wind direction. After seven flights, Phil Robertson is on top, unbeaten with 6 wins (and one bye) Josh Junior has 5 wins, Rueben Corbett 4 wins and Adrian Short also 4 wins. The Open Division will complete their racing on Saturday, 6th September

Day Two - Friday 5th September 
The four Women's teams  got underway today with similar light winds to yesterday (but from the south) and overcast sky's that led to some heavy showers around the middle of the day. Jessica Smyth proved too strong winning all of her six round-robin matches, won her semi final 2 - 0 and then overcoming the other finalist, Stephanie Hazard also 2 - 0. 

Day Three - Saturday 6th September
The Open Division were back on the water today finishing off round robin 1 before going straight into a second round robin which was completed as the daylight faded. (Perfect timing by Race Officer Gerald Flynn and his  race management team)! Conditions were ideal for match racing with a steady south west breeze. Phil Robertson finished the day in 1st place (on count back) on 12 points with Josh Junior in 2nd, also on 12 points. Adrian Short is on 10 points in 3rd with Rueben Corbett on 9.The semi finals and finals will be sailed tomorrow, Sunday 7th September with the first race scheduled to start at 10.00 am.

Day Four - Sunday 7th September
Four teams sailed today to contest the semi finals and finals of the New Zealand trials. At stake was an invitation to enter the Nations Cup, Oceania Regional Final to be sailed here at Westhaven, hosted by the RNZYS, commencing 25th September. Conditions on the harbour today were overcast with a steady north-east wind 15 - 19 knots and a short, sharp, choppy sea that made the crews work hard. The race committee were constantly aware that the wind was forecast to rise so kept the matches moving along smartly. The leading skipper after the two round-robins, Phil Robertson chose to sail his semi final against 4th placed Rueben Corbett leaving Josh Junior up against Adrian Short in the other semi final.

Robertson and Short won their semi's, 2 - 1 and 2 - 0 respectively.
Josh Junior then beat Rueben Corbett 2 - 0 in the Petite Final.

In the Grand Final, Phil Robertson won the first race but Adrian Short (and his team of Scott & Peter Burling) came back to win the next two races to take out the regatta."

How come we did not get the result we were after? Simple really, we were not fast enough and made one too many mistakes. Race 1 of the semis, came off the line with an even start, He rolled us with in 30 seconds, we knew something was wrong. We had never been this slow in the breeze before, so we had to use this race to try and get some boat speed. This race was not a complete waste of time, as Matty fell out of the boat. (Chris and I found that quite amusing).

Race 2, we knew we were lacking a little bit of speed so we went into the pre start very aggressively, this was a bad call as it back fired and we copped a penalty. We now had it all to do!! And our boat speed was more even we had the lead but just lacking a little speed we struggled to gain an opportunity to lose the penalty and a bad tactical call by me lost us any chance of setting a trap and getting rid of the penalty. DAMN IT, we were so annoyed at ourselves for letting this opportunity pass us.

By the time the petite finals came around, we had so much speed we didn't no what to do with it, we won our races by a long way. If only we had this speed in the semis! The thing I most enjoyed about this regatta was learning to match race in really strong tide as well as having an obstruction like the wall to use, we learnt heaps and would like to thank the Port Nicholson Yachting Trust and Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club for continuing to support us to these events.

Cheers Josh

28th-31st Aug 2008
2008 Youth Match Racing Nationals

The boys in action

The 2008 Youth Match Racing Nationals was a huge success for the Royal Port Nicholson Youth Scheme. Tim, Josh and I managed to go through the round robin with 12 wins from 14 races. Matt was close behind with 11 wins and both the Auckland teams had 10 wins. We chose Shaun Mason for the semi finals and left Matt to race against William Tiller. We had 2 big wins to make our way though to final. Meanwhile Matt was struggling to shake off Tiller. Matt was winning every start but Tiller had a significant speed edge. Matt made it through with 2 wins verses Tiller's 1 win.

The show down was set. All our training had been close and it was set to be a close final. Race 1 of the final. We had an even start but I was in the tight leeward position, good I thought, I'll be able to squeeze him out. But some how he managed to hold us all the way to the lay line, this is when I realised that they had a fraction of a speed edge, and they sailed all the shifts to end up with a big lead. The second race was similar but we managed to keep it a lot closer. We now realised we needed to have a slight advantage off the line and sail a good race. The 3rd race. A must win race for us because Matt only needed one more race to take out the regatta. We managed to have a penalty on him and be leading off the line which was perfect and we managed to sail away with the race.

Close racing on finals day

Race number 3. One of the most exciting races of my life. Another must win for my team. We had another even start, maybe slight advantage to us because we had starboard advantage. A tacking duel then evolved but Matt slowly pulled away and lead around the top mark by a boat length. We were right on his tail and managed to roll him but in the process he luffed us and we gained a penalty, but we had the lead (finally). We held our lead up the next beat but it was not big enough to get rid of the penalty, we had to do something.

We were running downwind with kites up. We dropped our kite and started to position our self to get the hook on him. He broached but we were not in position to take best advantage. We eventually got the hook luffed him head to wind and completed a tack therefore getting rid of our penalty. We were now heading down to the finish again, we had the inside but still needed to gybe. The problem was that when we gybed Matt was going to have luffing rights. we needed to pull of the perfect gybe. We gybed, Matt luffed, we avoided. one boat lengh from finish, we had it I thought. Matt luffed, we crossed finish line first, BUT...... penalty against us. Dammmm.

What racing!!! so much fun, I wish we could have come out on the other side. But I think its fair to say the best team won on the day. There is a video up showing the pre start I won. Exciting stuff.

The winning team (Mathew Steven, Matthew Clough and Chris Jones).

Nothing has slowed down, that is for sure. Wellington Match has split up to form 2 new teams to compete in the New Zealand Youth Match Racing Nationals. I am steering a boat, with Tim Coltman on main an Josh P on bow. Matthew is seering another boat, with the famous Chris Jones on bow and Matthew Clough on main. We are out training every Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We are having some seriously close racing, with lots of very tight situations, which is awesome because we are learning so much.

The New Zealand Youth Match Racing Nationals are to be held in Wellington from Thursday the 28th to Sunday the 31st  of August. We are hoping that both our Wellington Match teams will find their way onto the podium.

Then the following Thursday (4th September) we are in Auckland, where Matt, Chris and I are going to try and qualify for the Nations Cup. If we manage to be top qualifier from New Zealand we will move onto the Oceania final, where the top ranked team will travel to Brazil to compete in the Nations Cup. What an exciting prospect.

After each day of racing at updates will be left on the comments page from both the Wellington Match teams.