Tom Grimes, Dante Olivieri, Jess Grimes, Eric Sparkes and Cole Tapper have won the 2018 Captain John Piper Regatta sponsored by CYCA member, Dean Harrigan, over the weekend. The two-day event saw seven teams from the CYCA Advanced Squad, Development Match Racing Squad, Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club compete.
The event marks final preparation for most teams competing in the upcoming Australasian youth match racing circuit which will begin next month with the Club Marine NSW Youth Match Racing Championship, hosted by the CYCA.
Day One of the event saw the Race Committee able to complete the seven flight round robin stage, with three teams, James Hodgson (CYCA), Tom Grimes (CYCA) and Jack Littlechild (RSYS) headed ashore tied at the top. With the top three teams only losing one race each, to each other, the tie was eventually broken after applying the complicated match racing rules tie-break system of seeing who lost first.
This meant that Hodgson came out on top, having lost his race in Flight 3 against Littlechild. Unfortunately for Littlechild, this relegated him to third overall, after he then lost to Grimes later in the round robin stage.
Day Two saw Darcy McCracken, competing in his first match race regatta, redeem himself after a lacklustre start on Day One. Rising to the challenge, he pulled himself off the bottom of the leader board to win the repechage round robin to finish the regatta in fifth overall.
The semi-finals ran to form, with Hodgson knocking out Hugo Stoner (CYCA) & Tom Grimes beating Jack Littlechild 2-0 to advance to the finals.
The two CYCA teams then had a strong battle for the overall title, with all five races needed to eventually find a winner. Sailing in variable winds between 4-14 knots, Grimes and Hodgson traded victories in the first four races. The final “winner takes all” race eventually saw Grimes being crowned champion of the event.
Many CYCA Youth Sailing Academy sailors will now shift their focus to offshore racing, for the Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race this coming weekend. The Club Marine NSW Youth Match Racing Championship, will then see our YSA sailors back in match racing for the following weekend, 4-5 August.
