After a successful day one of racing in good winds, day two of the Australian Women’s Match Racing Championships off the coast of Fremantle did not open with such promise. After a lengthy delay on shore after some confusion in relation to the day’s pairing list for the second round robin, the boats were towed out in the hope of completing round robin two. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be though, as the wind struggled to fill from any one particular direction, and despite a number of ‘drift-offs’ between competing teams, the day only resulted in two races being completed. Nicky Souter’s team continued to lead with wins in all of their races, Katie Spithill with one loss, and after another day of good consistent sailing and good light air crew manoeuvres, Amanda Scrivenor was a close third with six wins and two losses.

The racing on day three was brought forward an hour on the final day with the hope of being able to achieve more racing, and a number of tired looking teams arrived at the club at 7am with the past two long days of racing looking to have taken their toll on the sailors and officials. 

After a slight delay as the race committee allowed the wind to stabilize from the East, racing got underway with the committee deciding to try to complete the second round robin before finals. As the wind fluctuated in strength and direction, the race committee did a fantastic job to keep the racing as fair as possible, but after three more races of the round, the top four teams were clear, and the race committee decided to move straight to the semi-finals.

After the four teams met on the start boat, top ranked from the round robin Nicky Souter chose to race Lucinda Whitty of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron in a best of 3 semi-final series, leaving the CYCA team led by Amanda Scrivenor to verse top seeded Katie Spithill (number 3) for the chance of progressing to the top two.

The first match of the semi-finals got underway only to be abandoned half way up the first leg as a 50degree windshift approached the course area. After the course area was reset, Spithills team managed to take advantage of a leeward start against Scrivenor, forcing her to the unfavoured right hand side of the course early on, but despite constantly fighting back, Scrivenor was never able to gain the lead and Spithill sailed to a 30 second win leaving Scrivenor 1-win down and now in a must win situation if she and her crew wanted to progress further in the regatta.

In the other semi-final, Souter showed some weakness downwind with Whitty able to overtake on the first run to gain a boy-room advantage around the bottom mark which gave her enough room to cover Souter for the remainder of the race and also put the regatta leader until now in a must win situation.

After another short delay as some boat breakages were attended to, Scrivenor was able to reverse the situation on Spithill gaining the upper hand with a tight to leeward start, and with superior boat speed upwind and solid down-wind tactics, led Spithill for the whole race to level the series brining it down to a final deciding race. This was also the case in the Souter-Whitty semi final, with Souter leveling the scores; setting up an intense final duel to decide who the regatta finalists would be.

The final race of the semi-final didn’t disappoint. After Souter won her race against Whitty; Scrivenor after trailing slightly off the start against Spithill, then managed to induce Spithill into a tight tacking duel and managed to gain a slight advantage to then lee-bow Spithill and force her towards the lay-line. After Scrivenor rounded the top mark with an excellent kite set and a two length lead, Spithill tried hard to attack, but Scrivenor’s team remained calm under pressure, and extended. Spithill then ripped their kite on the bottom mark rounding, leaving Scrivenor to maintain a safe cover upwind and then extend downwind to secure a spot in the finals.

The wind had settled into a consistent 4-6knots from the South West, but the 4pm time limit for the final race was fast approaching. In the first match in the best of five series, Souter managed to gain a leeward start advantage after a tight pre-start. With the leeward start proving very valuable in the light conditions, Souter was able to take control of the race, and despite only trailing by approx 2 – 6 boat lengths for most of the race Scrivenor was unable to gain the lead to go 1-win down in the finals. The second race proved very similar, but a spinnaker twist on the first kite hoist proved costly and the CYCA team were unable to launch an effective attack to get back in the race to now be 2 wins down, and in a must win situation to prevent Souter from winning the National title.

The third race saw one of the closest of the regatta so far, with Scrivenor gaining a slight advantage to lead Souter in a tight upwind tacking duel, with Scrivenor’s superior crew work once again proving a deciding factor to lead around the top mark and extend with a good kite set. Displaying solid down-wind tactics again, Scrivenor’s team managed to extend their lead to take a tight, but comfortable win.

Unfortunately, however the 4pm deadline had passed, and as a result no more racing could be held, meaning Souter won the championships 2-1. 

The three panel selection committee of Michael Jones, Michael Dunstan and Skip Lissiman announced the 10 member Australian Women’s Match Racing Training Squad from which will eventually be selected the Australian Women’s Match Race Team to contest the Nations Cup Regional Finals in New Zealand at the end of this month. Those 10 members are:

• Nicky Souter
• Olivia Price
• Nina Curtis
• Samantha Boyd
• Lilly Taylor
• Amanda Scrivenor
• Jessica Eastwell
• Katie Spithill
• Rayshele Martin
• Susan Veal

From the squad of 10 a team of 6 were selected to contest the Australian Open Match Racing Championships which starts on Thursday 4 September. They are:

• Nicky Souter (helm)
• Olivia Price (trim)
• Nina Curtis (main)
• Samantha Boyd (trim)
• Lilly Taylor (bow)
• Amanda Scrivenor (bow)

Will Ryan with additional information supplied by Yachting Australia