After three days of very close racing on Wellington Harbour Dylan Wichman, Michael Cate and Andrew Clark have come out on top of the 2013 Youth Match Racing Championship.
Racing got underway on Thursday 3 October with round robin one saliled in fresh conditions on the inner harbour. Wichman’s team showed an early indication of their form taking out the first round robin on a count back from Adam Middleton, Mike Cook and Kate Johnson-Lee from Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club.
Round robin two followed on Friday 4 October with slightly less breeze and tricky shifty conditions. Again Wichman’s team sailed a strong second round robin to go into the finals on 11 wins ahead of Middleton’s team on 10 wins with Alex Dyet’s and Stewart Dodson’s team from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron filling out the two other semi final spots.
Day three and the stage was set for a close final round … and the sailors did not disappoint. Wichman’s team took the first semi final from Dodson while the fast improving Dyet upset Middleton’s team 2-1 in the second semi final.
Then Dyet got off to a great start in the finals taking out the first match but Wichman quicklly bounced back to take match two. It went match for match in the next two races setting up a winner take all last match of the finals. Wichman and team then turned on a fine display of match racing skills to take out the final match and championship winning from start to finish.
Meanwhile the petit finals also came down to the wire with Middelton and team prevailing to take third place overall from Dodson and team.
All in all a great three days of match racing showing that the future of New Zealand match racing is alive and well!
