Robertson leads Gilmour at the Warren Jones Regatta, WA. Supplied image.
by John Roberson
New Zealand skipper Phil Robertson has signalled his intention to hold onto the Warren Jones International Youth Regatta trophy, by going though the first day of the series undefeated, to hold top place on the leaderboard overnight.
On a day that saw a series of collisions as crews pushed the boundaries, and kept the repair teams busy, Robertson’s experience showed as he kept out of trouble, and produced both good speed and smart tactics.
He summed up his day with his usual understatement, “it wasn’t bad, we’re pretty happy with it, we’re still a bit rusty, but hopefully it’ll come right in the next day or two. We had two real tough ones today, Gilmour was quite a hard one and we just came out ahead, and Gibbsey was a tough one. So it was the local boys in their own breeze. It was hard work in the stronger breeze, but I think we were all right, the boat handling worked.”
With a score line of six wins and no losses, Robertson has a good margin at the top of the leaderboard over fellow Kiwi William Tiller in second place, his score is four wins to one loss. There is no shortage of rivalry between these two with Tiller being on Robertson’s crew when he won last year.
Third place on the ladder is held by the host club’s David Gilmour on a score of four wins and two losses.
A seabreeze that built to 25 knots during the afternoon, combined with a punishing schedule of races, tested the crews to the limit, with a long list of repairs to boats and people at the end of the day.
Both Robertson and Tiller are from Auckland’s Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, the club that has produced many of the world’s to match racers.
The Warren Jones regatta is run by Swan River Sailing in conjunction with Royal Perth Yacht Club, and this year’s hosts, the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club.
Warren Jones Regatta
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