Burling and Tuke in the 49er. Image copyright Thom Touw.
by Jodie Bakewell-White
The regatta, which is the fifth in the ISAF Sailing World Cup Series, concluded Sunday.
The kiwis in the 49er went into last night’s double points medal race in third position behind Delle Karth of Austria and Australia’s Outteridge. They placed second in the race which saw them move up to claim the silver medal.
“The wind was increasing nicely but very up and down in pressure across the course as it was blowing offshore,” reports Richard Burling. “Perfect flat water conditions for high speed skiff sailing with speeds over 20 knots reached downwind.”
The top three placed crews battled it out on the water leading the medal race in close combat, and in second after the first lap Burling and Tuke had silver in their sights.
“At the end of the second lap disaster hit the top placed Austrian boat when they capsized at the bottom mark after not being able to get their gennaker down in time,” reports Richard Burling.
The Australians Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen slipped past into the lead and went on to win the medal race and the regatta with Burling and Tuke second in both the medal race and the regatta.
This is the best result to date for the young kiwis who have been in the 49er together for only 18 months. Burling and Tuke won silver at Sail Melbourne in December last year, and placed eighth at Miami Olympic Classes Regatta in January this year.
The increasing momentum of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series and the narrowing proximity to the 2012 Olympic Games mean that this year’s Delta Lloyd Regatta has attracted a top quality fleet of 72 49er teams from 26 nations. 18 of the top 20 ranked boats have competed in Medemblik including the reigning World Champion, Outteridge, who was the only team to beat the kiwis this time.
Burling, who is just 19 years old, represented New Zealand at the 2008 Olympic Games in the 470 class and Tuke, now 20 years, has an ISAF Youth World medal and the Splash World title in his sailing resume.
Jez Fanstone, YNZ’s Olympic Programme Manager has been in Medemblik as coach to the 49er crew at this regatta.
Jon-Paul Tobin finished tenth in the 100 strong Men’s RS:X fleet despite suffering from a back injury on the penultimate day of the series. The incident meant Tobin scored a DNF for race seven.
“The DNF was due to somehow popping out up my upper back lower neck in race six,” explains Tobin. “The Dutch physio helped to work the problem out a little bit that night and following morning.”
Tobin was able to go on and continue racing and compete in the medal race, in which he placed eighth. He finished the series in tenth overall.
The next Olympic classes regatta in the ISAF Sailing World Cup is Kiel Week in Germany which runs from 18th to 23rd June. Before then New Zealand’s Star crew of Hamish Pepper and Criag Monk will be in action at the Star European Championships on in Viareggio, Italy starting June 5th.
New Zealand’s Final Results
For full results see the regatta website
49er (Total fleet 72)
Silver medal - Peter Burling and Blair Tuke
Men’s RS:X (Total fleet 100)
10th Jon-Paul Tobin
Women’s RS:X (Total fleet 60)
28th Natalia Kosinska
Women’s Match Racing (Total fleet 24)
14th Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen and Sam Osborne
Yachting New Zealand
Delta Lloyd Regatta
