WAIS Sailors Return Medal Performances at Sail Melbourne
WAIS athletes have enjoyed medal winning performances at the Sail Melbourne World Cup event.
WAIS athlete Carrie Smith and her crew Jaime Ryan took home the women’s 470 National Championships at the beginning of last week and recently qualified the boat class after they finished ninth at the 470 World Championships in Haifa, Israel in October. The ninth place also qualified the pair for the Australian Sailing Team (AST).
They only returned to racing in October after extended medical issues kept Carrie Smith on the sidelines for most of the 2015 season and were looking forward to completing a full World Cup.
They did so successfully by winning six out of eight races plus the Medal Race and securing their first World Cup win together. Racing in a mixed-fleet they also finished third overall.
“It was a glamour day out there and Melbourne put on a good show for us with a nice breeze. We’ve had a great week and it was a good challenge for us to race against the guys here and we enjoyed the extra push,” Jaime Ryan said.
And skipper Carrie Smith added: “It’s pretty exciting to win and to sail on home waters and with family here. To keep improving was our main aim for this week and we learnt a few lessons as we were hoping to.”
“We’ll train a bit in Sydney before heading to the World Cup in Miami in January and that will be just before our worlds in Argentina in February. The worlds will be our next challenge, as we’d obviously love to qualify ourselves for Rio. It would be a massive jump, but we believe that we can do it and the Sailing World Cup Melbourne was perfect racing experience,” Smith said.
In the Sonar class, Australian Sailing Team members Colin Harris (WAIS), Jonathan Harris and Russell Boaden (WAIS) went into the World Cup with unfinished business after the trio won silver at the Para World Sailing Champs with only one point separating them from the gold medal winning British crew.
“It was pretty tough because we were a bit disappointed about our final position at the worlds. But at the end of the day the team did really well, refocused, got on with the job and got some really good results this week to put us in the gold medal spot at the end,” skipper Colin Harrison said.
“There were a few less teams out on the water this week, but a lot of good quality boats so the competition was tough and we had always tight and very enjoyable racing. I’m really happy with the work on the boat and the team has done really well. And a big thank you to our coach Grant (Alderson) for all his input from the coaching point of view,” he added.
And looking ahead he said: “Moving forward, we need to consolidate our position towards the front of the fleet and we need to keep up the podium finishes and look for those small gains that we can make to improve our performances. We need more regattas and just sheer hard work.”
The team qualified the Sonar last year for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and have continuously finished on the podium since then.
This was the second World Cup win for the team this year, having won the Sailing Sailing World Cup in Weymouth in June, and the first one on home waters. It finished off a successful season after the team also took home silver at the Sailing World Cup in Hyères in April and gold at the Delta Lloyd Regatta in May.
“We were very happy with our world cup events this year. We do most of them in Europe and this was our first in Australia and it’s so good to get a gold on home waters. After coming runner up in the worlds it’s nice to make amends to show we can still be on top of the podium.”
In the women’s 49erFX class, a decision to keep up the spinnaker paid dividends for Tess Lloyd (VIC) and Caitlin Elks (WAIS) in their Medal Race.
Only one point separated the pair from the leading New Zealand crew and it all came down to the final few metres in a nail-biting final.
“It all came down to the last reach and we were trying to make a call whether to hold the kite up or drop the kite. We made the call to keep it up which got pretty hairy for a second but we just pipped the Kiwis over the line. There were only millimetres between us and we just made it,” Caitlin Elks said of the thrilling finale.
Skipper and local Tess Lloyd added: “We didn’t have the turn out that we wanted with only New Zealand and Sweden making the way down under but we had tight racing. We also had a chance to mix it up with the boys who really pushed us on the start line. It was a good decision to put us on the same course and mixed it up a little bit and really good training to keep us on our toes ahead of our Worlds.”
In the men’s 49er class, WAIS athlete David Gilmour and his crew Rhys Mara finished third in a consistent week of racing that included five race wins. Emerson Carlberg finished in sixth place, crewing for Will Boulden.
Luke Elliott earned a sixth place finish in the men’s laser class, with Mark Spearman 10th whilst in the 420 class, young guns Nia Jerwood and Lisa Smith won gold, following a successful campaign that included beating the competing men.
Alistair Young was sixth in the men’s laser radial, Elyse Ainsworth finished fifth in the women’s laser radial, with Jacinta Ainsworth seventh.
-YachtingAus