Lucinda Whitty has taken out the Marinassess Women’s Match Racing Regatta for the second year running sailing an excellent regatta over two days. With the second round robin not fully completed, the ISAF scoring system had to be used to calculate
the results which produced a three way tie and top places decided on a count back.

The forecast was correct this morning with little to no breeze welcoming sailors at their briefing. Going out on the water hoping for an on time start was a little optimistic and the breeze failed to eventuate leading to an early lunch break. Of course, returning to shore brought the breeze and sailing commenced at midday.

Racing started with the first few matches producing some close sailing. Alex South (RSYS) and Josie Roper (CYCA) had a tight match with Roper approaching the finish line one boat length ahead of South who then had to complete her penalty she
received in the prestart. Jessica Smyth (RNZYS) and Katie Spithill (AS&DS) then had a good match with Smyth eventually pulling away from Spithill to win by 19 seconds.

Pushing through the racing until the cut off time for an attention signal at 1530, six flights were completed today. Dayne Sharp, coach of the CYCA teams, commented that “the developing CYCA teams showed marked improvement today and sailing
against the top ranked Australian and New Zealand teams was a great experience for the girls”.

At the same time, several of the Youth Sailing Academy sailors took on umpiring in this regatta and the chief umpire, Rob Ware encouraged them to do so as this shows them another side of match racing and improves their knowledge of the rules.

At the Presentation, Marinassess Managing Director, John Messenger congratulated the girls on an excellent event and was pleased to see the interest in this event from overseas and is looking forward to it becoming a major event on the women’s match racing calendar. His sponsorship of this event is greatly appreciated by the teams as regatta practice is so important for the development of the sport.

Many of these teams will meet again in the next few weeks, at the New Zealand Women’s National Championship in Auckland and then at Harken Women’s International Match Racing Regatta at the CYCA in early April.

Marinassess Women’s Match Racing Regatta Final results:

1. Lucinda Whitty (AS&DS)
2. Katie Spithill (AS&DS)
3. Jessica Smyth (RNZYS)
4. Olivia Price (CYCA)
5. Nicky Souter (AS&DS)
6. Alex South (RSYS)
7. Catherine Trew (CYCA)
8. Brie-Ashli Whitton (RPAYC)
9. Josie Roper (CYCA)
10. Kirsten Norris (CYCA)

For full details of the regatta please click here.