NZL qualifies for olympic match race event

Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen and Susannah Pyatt have finished their match racing regatta today with an impressive ninth place overall. At the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships, these three girls have qualified New Zealand a spot in the Match Race event of the 2012 Olympic Games.

“It was a very very long event” Susannah said after their last race today. “All the teams were so even, each day was important.”

Although they narrowly missed out on the quarter final round due to a tie break (top eight teams only), this is not an achievement to be taken lightly. The fleet has been extremely competitive; an illustration of this is that the team that won the Olympic test event this year was unable to even qualify their country at this event.

“It was mixed emotions when we got off the water. We were stoked to have just qualified the nation convincingly, but it was nerve-wracking waiting for the other results to come in to see if we made the next round” Said Susannah.

Meanwhile racing continued in the other four fleets where there were two races for the Men’s RS:X, Laser and Women’s 470, and three for the men’s 49er.

Tom Ashley was the NZL Sailing Team’s top performer today, he placed third and second in his two races on the centre course of Bathers Bay. This racing area is developing a reputation of being the most difficult race course, partly due to the shifty conditions, and Tom wisely navigated the breeze and has moved up in the overall standings to fourth.

The men’s laser course saw some big changes in overall standings, and Andrew Murdoch has re-set the pace for the Lasers of the NZL Sailing Team. He has climbed up the leader board and now sits in eighth overall after the first two days of racing.

“I got a yellow flag during the start of the second race, and that was my best race so far in the regatta” Andrew said. A yellow flag is the judge’s penalty signal for a rule 42 (pumping) infringement, and Andrew managed a fourth place finish in that race even after the unfortunate start. “Sailing through the fleet like that was a bit of a confidence builder”

Wednesday is the last day of sailing in the relatively even yellow/blue/red qualifying pools. On Thursday, the Men’s RS:X, Laser and 49er will be split into fleets based on their results from this regatta (gold/silver/bronze fleets). The women’s 470 fleet remain in one fleet throughout the regatta due to their smaller fleet size.

Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships
Womens Match Racing

Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen, Susannah Pyatt

9th overall- final result

New Zealand’s current standings

49er- 67 Teams
4th Peter Burling and Blair Tuke (5, 3, 2, 16, 6, 6)
28th Marcus Hansen and Josh Porebski (34DNC, 13, 18, 17, 11, 5)
61st Chris Burgess and Rohan Swanson (26, 29, 34DNC, 22, 29, 30)

470 Women- 48 Teams
10th Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie (7, 4, 14, 25)
41st Vicki Francis and Erica Dawson (32, 43, 43, 44)

Men’s Laser- 147 Competitors
8th Andrew Murdoch (6, 7, 7, 4)
12th Mike Bullot (12, 4, 2, 12)
20th Andrew Maloney (17, 5, 2, 13)
21st Sam Meech (12, 11, 4, 10)
28th Josh Junior (7, 3, 5 32)
95th Tom Saunders (26, 35, 12, 50DNF )

RS:X Men’s- 89 Competitors
4th Tom Ashley (2, 7, 3, 2)
12th JP Tobin (6, 4, 6, 10)
57th Antonio Cozzolino (26, 32,25, 33)
80th Carl Evans (38, 47DNF, 34, 38)

About this event

The Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships feature the world’s best sailors in all ten Olympic classes from over 80 nations. Over 1200 Sailors will take part, contending for country qualification for the 2012 Olympic Games, and the World Championship titles.

The event officially opened on December 3rd with the start of the Women’s Match Racing and this class will race for the duration of the event, due to the round-robin format of match racing. All other classes will have seven days of racing that conclude with a double point medal race for the top ten. The NZL Sailing Team women's match racers finished their regatta in 9th overall.

The first week of racing (December 5 – 11) featured the Women’s RS:X windsurfer, Women’s single person dinghy class Laser Radial, Men’s double handed class 470 and the Men’s one person dinghy heavy, the Finn class. NZ’s top two results were also personal bests for the campaigns, 8th overall for Paul Snow
Hansen with Jason Saunders in the 470, and 10th overall for Sara Winther in the Laser Radial.

The sailors of week one have qualified New Zealand in all four classes that have completed racing, and the women's match racing event.

The second week of racing (December 12-18) now hosts all other classes, the Men’s RS:X Windsurfer, Men’s single person dinghy class Laser, Women’s double handed class 470, Men’s Skiff 49er.

Visit the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships for results, tracking, live updates, and much more news from on and off the water. www.perth2011.com

A daily TV programme of approximately 25 minutes will also be available online www.sailing.org/tv

‘Like’ the NZL Sailing Team on Facebook, or follow @nzlsailingteam on twitter for news and results as they happen.