Sailing News
Young 88 NSW Championships
This year’s Y88 NSW Championships saw
10 Y88s gather on the picturesque waters
of Pittwater on April 16/17. The annual
regatta hosted by the ever professional
RPAYC saw a hotly contested series with
some of the closest competition seen
in recent years with numerous boats
sporting new headsails and spinnakers.
Held over 6 windward leeward races
with no drops allowed meant that any
mistakes were punished. Saturday had
light NE breezes averaging 5-10 knots
over the course of the day which saw
Agent 88 skippered by Stephen Ellis
dominate with superior boat speed in
the light conditions leveraging their
local knowledge of Pittwater. Agent 88
was chased down hard by defending
champion Pistol Dawn from BSC
skippered by Mal Thompson with Kia
Kaha from RANSA and Pelangi all sharing
podium places on Day 1.
With a weak southerly coming through
overnight and then building on the
morning of day 2, races 4 and 5 saw a
very different track. Kia Kaha skippered
by Justin Atkinson jumped out of the
blocks and led the whole way to take
their first bullet of the series. Pistol
Dawn also revelled in the fresher breeze
which varied between 10-20 knots and
manage to reverse the tables on Agent
88 in the series score by the end of race
5. It all came down to Race 6 and with
the breeze fading to 10 knots, Agent 88
did everything they could to close out
the series with a convincing win and
daylight to the second place Pistol Dawn.
However all that was needed of Pistol
Dawn to close out the series was to hang
on to second which she did to clinch the
series by the closest of margins – 1 point.
The final results on scratch were:
1 Pistol Dawn
Mal Thompson 10.0
2 Agent 88
Stephen Ellis 11.0
3 Kia Kaha
Justin Atkinson 20.0
The PHS series results showed that it
was open for anyone to win with an
impressive win in Race 4 by Venue
skippered by Brian Ellis and Knott in
Race 5 skippered by Bruce Davison. It
was Agent 88 who was to take out the
series for PHS, Kia Kaha 2nd and a fast
improving Quiksticks skippered by Bill
Warren taking out 3rd overall. The final
results for PHS were:
1 Agent 88
Stephen Ellis 22.0
2 Kia Kaha
Justin Atkinson 26.0
3 Quicksticks
Bill Warren 27.0
By Malcolm Thompson