David Gilmour remains well in charge at the Colin Mullins regatta. Image copyright John Roberson.
by John Roberson
David Gilmour’s dominance of the Colin Mullins International Youth Regatta was sufficient on the second day that he was able to forfeit his last two matches, and still head the leaderboard at the end of the triple round robin series.
The young skipper representing Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, went through a long and demanding day afloat, in which the temperature approached 40 degrees and the wind almost boxed the compass, losing only one match from eleven sailed, then electing not to contest his last two matches, secure in the knowledge he could not be beaten for the top spot.
“It was pretty good,” he commented after coming ashore, “I think in the end we only dropped one race to Tristan (Brown). There were a lot of close races out there, and it was pretty tiring as we’ve been out there since 9 o’clock. Really hard wind conditions, it picked up pretty windy.”
With a cyclone in the north of the huge state of Western Australia, there was no doubting it’s influence on the conditions experienced by the young teams contesting this event, making life difficult for the competitors and the race management.
Starting the day with full mainsails and big jibs, at one stage they were down to small jibs, reefed mains and no spinnakers.
Evan Walker and his crew from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia secured second place on the leaderboard, with Tristan Brown taking third place over Harry Thurston after a tie-breaker.
Interestingly Harry Thurston, from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Gilmour’s club mate Tristan Brown were the only skippers to beat Gilmour on the water.
David Gilmour now gets the privilege of choosing his semi-finals opponent, which will be a first to win three points series.
Amongst the dramas on this gusty and energy sapping day was an injury to Evan Walker’s bowman, Henry Kernot, who suffered rope burn when he got the mainsheet around his neck, and had to be taken ashore, but was able to continue racing after treatment.
The Colin Mullins International Youth Regatta is being hosted this year by the Royal Perth Yacht Club, and sailed on the Swan River’s Matilda Bay, and is a qualifying event for next week’s Warren Jones International Youth Regatta.
Results after day 2:
Skipper Country Score
David Gilmour AUS 17 - 4
Evan Walker AUS 16 – 5
Tristan Brown AUS 13 - 8
Harry Thurston NZL 13 - 8
Matthew Steven NZL 11 - 10
Tom Johnson AUS 10 - 11
Kosaku Yoshida JPN 2 - 19
Danielle Bowater NZL 2 - 19
Colin Mullins Youth International Match Racing
