ILCA 6 Youth & Open Worlds – Poland
Team AUS at ILCA 6 Youth Worlds – Photo Marek Wilczek
Twelve Australians competed in the ILCA 6 Men’s and Women’s Youth and the ILCA 6 Open Men’s World Championships 1-9 July in Dziwnow Poland. There were 374 all up in the three events with the majority (259) in the Men’s Youth Championship.
Team AUS had some great learning and with three in the Gold Fleet in the huge Youth Men’s event had some solid results.
Coach Rhett Gowans takes up the commentary from the finals series (day 4) below.
“Due to lack of wind, day four was a write-off. We waited ashore for a light breeze to fill in, but it never eventuated. This gave the team a further opportunity to gel as a group.
Day five brought a light 5-10knot N-NE. As we missed the first day of finals, they planned on running 6 races over the next two days. Over the last two days of the regatta, as the wind got lighter, the current greatly impacted the racecourse, making it difficult to get off the line cleanly. In the Aussie fleet, big learnings were taken especially start line approach & how pivotal correctly timed trigger pulls are in a big, competitive fleet.
Angus McIntyre added to the tally of wins, winning Race 7 in Emerald Fleet while Ed Reid and Pat Cummin had top results in their first races of the day.
Day six was the penultimate day of racing, three more races were scheduled. Similar to day five, the breeze was out of the N-NE, around 5-7knots for the most part. Angus chalked up another great day, with a 2, 13, 16 to take out Emerald fleet. Xavier Bates & Marcus Sampson had great first race results. Pat & Lucas James ended the regatta strongly with improvement in Race 12. Hamish Gilsenan & Ed Reid had strong, consistent races in the Gold Fleet, with Ed being the Aussies highest placed finisher in 22nd overall.
Lili McAullay and Frances Beebe finished a few points apart in 46 and 47 in the 100 Women’s Youth event and they and Stewart Gifford and Myles Wilson all had great regattas, experiencing how to get off tight start lines & manage big fleets.
Best of luck to Stewart, Xavier & Frances in Gdynia, Poland for the Euros.
A big thank you to all the parents, sailors, team manager – Leigh Cummin, coach Annie Eastgate, ILCA Australia youth rep and organiser Don Elks and the ILCA and Australian Sailing for making it all possible.”