Sydney fleet member David Clark and his team of Andrew Smith and Sean Leonard are delighted by their winning result in the Entire Port Phillip Championship.
'Our goal going into this regatta was not so much to focus on the final result, but to get some rhythm in our sailing particularly in our race management which we seemed to have achieved, so we are pretty happy,' Clark said
Clark finished the regatta with 21 points after a second and a seventh on day one, then two sixths today. Next on the results were John Bertrand and his Triad team of Ben Ainslie and Andrew Palfrey who finished five points behind Clark on 26.
At the end of day one Bertrand carried a fourth and a first. In today's racing he finished sixteenth in the third race before climbing back up to fifth in the final race of the two-day event.
In third place overall and winner of the final race of the regatta was the four-man team of Damien King, Simon Cunnington, James Ware and Andrew Butler of Melbourne.
The fleet of 44 Etchells raced today in shifty, soft breezes which took to the later part of the afternoon to settle.
In these seemingly easy racing conditions there was still some drama on the water. In race one black flags were awarded to Brisbane's Jason Muir, Adelaide's Jason Ward and Hong Kong's Mark Thornburrow. Muir proved his skills as talented skipper by backing up for the second race to finish in third place; obviously not put off by his first race result.
Another casualty of the race was Melbourne's Jake Gunther who was forced to pull out of the race with a bent mast.
Previous World Champion Jud Smith seemed to have woken up from his jet-lag to finish fourth in both of today's races. Given both some more time to adjust his body clock and more on-water training with his crew, Smth is likely to be found in the top results throughout next week's Worlds.
The international fleet now have one week to get ready for the Audi Etchells World Championship. Racing on Melbourne's Port Phillip starts Sunday 8 March and concludes Saturday 14 March.
CLARK, David
MCCARTHY, Will
GAIR, Alastair
KENNEDY, Lindsay
COOPER, Andrew
