Davis leads Day One of the New Zealand Match Racing Championships

Davis leads Day One of the New Zealand Match Racing Championships
Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Auckland

Chris Dickson (right) leads Dean Barker (left)

Rod Davis and his Emirates Team New Zealand crew lead day one of the New Zealand Match Racing Championships winning all 6 of his races.
Fellow team mate Dean Barker is next on 5 wins only losing his last race of the day to Chris Dickson.
In the pre-start Dickson was close to leeward with Barker to windward off the start line, Dickson came up under Barker who had to tack off. Dickson extended a little and then tacked over onto port. After the tack Dickson looked to be 1 boat length in front of Barker. As the two boats closed in on the top mark Dickson caught a favourable left hand shift, and his lead jumped out to around 4 boat lengths. Dickson’s young team worked hard and kept the lead to win the race.

Also on 5 wins for the day is Jonathan Rankine and Laurie Jury, but both end the day with a total of 4.5 points.
Rankine was deducted half a point after a collision with the all female crew in Flight 2 this morning. Rankine completed his penalty turn for the incident and went onto win the race, however after the match the umpires deducted half a point for the damage caused.

Jury’s half point deduction was not for damage. In his final race of the day against Adam Minoprio running side by side the two boats crossed the finish line at the exact same time and the Race Committee awarded them a dead-heat and half a point each.

The racing was extremely close this afternoon once a moderate southerly breeze filled in, but when racing began this morning it was light airs, tricky sailing and a few crews found patches of no-wind on the Waitemata Harbour.
In the first flight of the day the Youth Training Programme team skipper by Michael Thorpe raced Youth Programme graduate Phil Robertson. Off the start line the two boats looked very even but Thorpe and crew protected the favoured right hand side of the course and kept pushing Robertson to the left which put Robertson in a hole with no wind and Thorpe and crew went on to win the race.

Laurie Jury (left) prestart against Phil Robertson (right)

In his next race Thorpe matched up against Jan Dawson. As both boats entered the pre-start, Thorpe on starboard started to luff Dawson on port and Dawson failed to keep clear and was given a penalty by the match umpires. The pair tacked away and came back together again with Thorpe again on starboard and Dawson tried to cross in front of him on port but failed to clear him resulting in a second penalty to Dawson. After the start Dawson had to complete one penalty turn and the youth team sailed away for their second win.

The match up of the day that really mattered to Thorpe and crew was racing their fellow Youth Programme members and coach onboard with Chris Dickson, it was always going to be a tough race against Dickson who is one of their sailing hero’s!
It was a split tack start and Dickson’s team were just ahead at the top mark for the first time, the youth team closed in and rounded the bottom mark just behind Dickson. Dickson went to the favoured right hand side and gained to take the win by 34 seconds.

Today’s results are listed below;
Flight 1
R. Davis beat J. Dawson by 1m 40s
M. Thorpe beat P. Robertson by 3m 30s
L. Jury beat C. Dickson by 3m 34s
D. Wood beat J. Smyth by 5s
D. Barker beat A. Minoprio by 55s
Bye: S. Dickey & J. Rankine

Flight 2
L. Jury beat P. Robertson by 51s
C. Dickson beat J. Dawson by 35s
A. Minoprio beat S. Dickey by 23s
D. Barker beat D. Wood by 39s
J. Rankine beat J Smyth by 45s (1/2 point deducted due to a collision)
Bye: M. Thorpe & R. Davis

Flight 3
L. Jury beat J. Dawson by 41s
C. Dickson beat P. Robertson by 38s
D. Barker beat S. Dickey by 30s
J. Rankine beat D. Wood by 10s
R. Davis beat M. Thorpe by 37s
Bye: A. Minoprio & J. Smyth

Flight 4
J. Rankine beat A. Minoprio by 51s
L. Jury beat M. Thorpe by 30s
R. Davis beat C. Dickson by 25s
J. Smyth beat S. Dickey by 14s
J. Dawson beat P. Robertson by 17s
Bye: D. Barker & D. Wood

Flight 5
R. Davis beat L. Jury by 19s
C. Dickson beat M. Thorpe by 34s
A. Minoprio beat J. Smyth by 30s
D. Barker beat J. Rankine by 17s
D. Wood beat S. Dickey by 1.18s
Bye: P. Robertson & J. Dawson

Flight 6
R. Davis beat P. Robertson by 51s
M. Thorpe beat J. Dawson by 1m 28s
D. Barker beat J. Smyth by 24s
J. Rankine beat S. Dickey by 20s
A. Minoprio beat D. Wood 25s
Bye: L. Jury & C. Dickson

Flight 7
J. Rankine beat P. Robertson by 31 s
L. Jury dead heat against A. Minoprio (1/2 point each)
C. Dickson beat D. Barker by 24s
R. Davis beat S. Dickey by 51s
D. Wood beat J. Dawson by 30s
Bye: M. Thorpe & J. Smyth

Points Table Sailed/ Wins / Loses
Rod Davis 6 / 6 / 0
Dean Barker 6 / 5 / 1
Jonathan Rankine 6 / 4.5 / 1
Laurie Jury 6 / 4.5 / 1
Chris Dickson 6 / 4 / 2
Adam Minoprio 6 / 3.5 / 2
David Wood 6 / 3/ 3
Michael Thorpe 5 / 2 / 3
Jessica Smyth 5 / 1 / 4
Jan Dawson 6 / 1 / 5
Phil Robertson 6 / 0 / 6
Simon Dickey 6 / 0 / 6