The CYCA Youth Sailing Academy’s Development Match Racing (DMR) Squad has defended their Interclub Challenge title in 2018 after three events at Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club, Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. Unfortunately, due to strong winds, the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron event was cancelled.
It is only the second time in the past 10 years that the DMR Squad has won the series after dominating it in 2017. Created in 2001 as a way to help identify & build youth sailors’ experience in fleet racing events whom participate in youth sailing programs at Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club, Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, the Interclub Series consists of four regattas at each club with up to two teams of each club competing in a maximum of 24 races throughout the series.
The DMR Squad, which is made up of 22 youth sailors aged between 15 to 20 years old, showed great maturity throughout the series, opening the series in Newcastle with a second-placed finish, three points behind the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron team which took the early lead in the Series.
Round Two was hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia on Sunday 10 June with the two CYCA teams dominating the day, winning five of the six races, returning ashore as both ‘Boat of the Day’ and ‘Club of Day’.
The following week a strong 30+ knot Southerly hit Sydney, cancelling racing out of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. The final event, hosted by Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club over the past weekend, Sunday 24 June, saw the two CYCA teams hold strong, finishing fourth and fifth for the day, but held onto a five-point lead over the chasing Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron Advanced Squad teams who applied the pressure on the overall Series right up to the last race.
In the end, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia held on to defend their title from 2018. Of the 22 sailors in the 2018 Squad, 16 have returned from the successful 2017 squad and will now continue with a four-week intensive match racing component to the program before finishing up at the end of July with the Captain John Piper Match Racing Regatta.
