Sunday 15 November 2009

Telecom New Zealand Match Racing Championships - Jury & Corbett into the Finals

Jury and Corbett into Finals, Dickson and Sutherland into Petit-Finals


Laurie Jury's team. Left to right: Mike Edmonds, Logan Fraser, Rhys O'Cain, Matty Stuart & Laurie Jury. Image copyright RNZYS.


Reuben Corbett's team. Left to right: Miles Addy, Adrian Short, Reuben Corbett, Matt Randall, Aaron Reynolds. Image copyright RNZYS.

by Barry Davies

After Round Robin Two was completed this morning Graeme Sutherland still held the top spot with 17 points overall, and choose to sail fourth placed Reuben Corbett.
Chris Dickson moved into third place, and this left him to sail second placed Laurie Jury.

Jury and Dickson were up first in the first to win three race semi-finals, Jury just out-sailed Dickson to take three consecutive wins and claim his spot in the finals.

In the other semi final between Sutherland and Corbett the racing was extremely close and stretched right out to the final fifth race. Corbett won the first, Sutherland the second and the third and Corbett the fourth. It was tied at two races each so the fifth and final race would be the decider. Corbett started well just in front of Sutherland but towards the top mark Sutherland fought his was back and at the top mark Corbett rounded just in front.

It was again close at the bottom mark but Corbett held onto his narrow lead to round first. Up the second beat the two teams split tacks, Corbett heading in towards the Westhaven sea-wall and Sutherland out into the middle of the Waitemata and the stronger tide. Corbett was the most successful and had a nice 11 second lead at the top mark for the second time. Heading down on the final leg Sutherland gybed on top of Corbett to try and attack from behind but Corbett kept his composure and stayed inside his opponent to take the win and his place in the finals.


Graeme Sutherland's team. Left to Right: Graeme Sutherland, Stu Molloy, Brett Elliott, Josh Wilson & Nick Bastow. Image copyright RNZYS.

In the minor placing sail-offs, the battle of the youth teams between William Tiller representing the RNZYS Lion Foundation Youth Training Programme and Josh Junior and his young team from the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club in Wellington, started with Tiller winning the first. Junior quickly bounced back to win the next two races and claim 5th place overall and win the ‘battle of the youth teams’.

In the 7th place sail offs was Mark Kroening versus the only international team representing the Wakayama Sailing Club helmed by Wataru Sakamoto. Sakamoto won the first race convincingly but Kroening bounced back to win the next two and claim 7th place overall.

This left the two remaining female teams in a sail off for ninth place overall. In the shifty and testing conditions Stephanie Hazard was too good for her main rival Samantha Osborne, and won the first two races to claim ninth place overall for the series.

Finals racing begins at 11am tomorrow (Sunday) morning, with Petit-Finals being the first to win two races and Finals being the first to win three races.

Saturday’s Results
Results Round Robin Two


Flight Ten
Junior beat Corbett by 3s
Dickson beat Kroening by 48s
Sutherland beat Hazard by 6s
Sakamoto beat Osborne by 15s
Jury beat Tiller by 1m58s

Flight Eleven
Sakamoto beat Hazard
Smyth beat Kroening
Sutherland beat Osborne
Junior beat Tiller
Jury beat Corbett

Double Round Robin Points Table
1. Sutherland 17pts
2. Jury 15pts
3. Dickson 14pts
4. Corbett 14pts
5. Tiller 12pts
6. Junior 11.5pts*
7. Kroening 7pts
8. Sakamoto 6pts
9. Hazard 6pts
10. Osborne 5pts
11. Smyth 2pts
*0.5 points deducted for damage

Sail-offs
5th place sail off
Tiller beat Junior by 4s
Junior beat Tiller by 36s
Junior beat Tiller by 58s

7th place sail off
Sakamoto beat Kroening by 16s
Kroening beat Sakamotoby 6s
Kroening beat Sakamoto by 30s

9th place sail off
Hazard beat Osborne by 33s
Hazard beat Osborne by 9s

Semi-Final 1
Jury beat Dickson by 3s
Jury beat Dickson by 17s
Jury beat Dickson by 6s

Semi-Final 2
Corbett beat Sutherland by 7s
Sutherland beat Corbett by 33s
Sutherland beat Corbett by 2s
Corbett beat Sutherland by 2s
Corbett beat Sutherland by 13s



Final Placings
5th Josh Junior (Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club)
6th William Tiller (RNZYS Lion Foundation Youth Training Programme)
7th Mark Kroening (Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron)
8th Wataru Sakamoto (Wakayama Sailing Club)
9th Stephanie Hazard (Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron)
10th Samantha Osborne (Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron)
11th Jessica Smyth (Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron)

Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron

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