This weekend RAYC had its largest ever turnout of sailors competing at the 2023 Sir Peter Blake Regatta, with almost 50 sailors out across the three race courses. Our young competitors were faced with some extremely tough conditions featuring strong breeze and huge swells. We were amazed at their resilience and eagerness to soldier on even after many epic spills and plenty of bailing for our Opti sailors.
RAYC achieved some fantastic results with our sailors standing on five different podiums and securing plenty of top 10s amongst the contingent. For the majority of our Green Fleet, this was their first ever major regatta and they did exceptionally well and battled hard against the conditions and 70-strong Fleet. Sean Poon had an exceptional regatta finishing in second place with consistent top-10 results the entire weekend. Jessica Lee also gained 2nd place in the Open Skiff Silver Fleet which was very exciting to see as this is her first season in the boat.
Our Starling Development Starlings are really starting to dominate their fleet with three sailors, Sebastion Segers (2nd), Lachie Gillies (4th), and Beatrix Muir (6th) all finishing in the top 1o. It is really great to see our next generation of Starling sailors coming through and showing so much promise.
Four RAYC RS Fevas competed with three boats finishing in the top five! Tom Peters and Josh Dixon won the regatta after an outstanding performance with a win in the first race and then second for all the other five races!
The RAYC 29er squad are all pretty fresh into the fleet and handled themselves and this tough new boat incredibly well. They showed great resilience even after some tough spills and worked very hard, you should all really pat yourselves on the back. Logan Ross and Louis Quere have only been sailing together for a few months so it was really encouraging to see them gain a sixth place after putting some strong results on the table.
Our Laser Squad was out in force with seven sailors out racing. Our ILCA 4 Fleet is extremely strong at the moment, with RAYC making up four of the five-boat fleet. Sebastian Corso – Fenelon came out on top however after three race wins and all top five results.
A massive thank you to all the coaches and parents who gave up their weekends to support our huge fleet of RAYC sailors, we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you to everyone who offered up their own private boats as support boats and those who towed club boats back and forth. We really appreciate your support in getting our kids on the water safely.
Well done everyone we are incredibly proud of you and look forward to seeing what you achieve the rest of the 2023/2024 season!
