The much-anticipated duel between the Aussies in the Nacra 17 at the 2019 Hyundai 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 World Championships in Auckland lost its lustre today, with Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin enjoying a podium position in second place while the Outteridge siblings, Nathan and Haylee, are languishing in twelfth.

Jason described their performance as a “bit average” but they’re happy with the result.

“It was a pretty one-way track for first two races and the last one got really funky,” said Jason. “It was difficult that’s for sure. It looked pretty but it just never ended up being pretty.”

He refused to look as far ahead as tomorrow’s medal race, focussing instead on the two remaining fleet races.

“Anything can happen in those fleet races. And you can’t plan for a medal race until you know how you are going into it - whether to be aggressive or who to look out for. Tomorrow’s forecast looks interesting so I think those two fleet races will be critical.”

Fellow Australian Sailing Team member Nathan Outteridge agrees. “The weather looks quite windy - a big northerly front with a fair bit of rain and over 20 knots. And if that does happen it could be a big day tomorrow. We are outside the top ten so our goal is to have two good races in the morning and scrape in.”

More homework was in store overnight in the Outteridge household with their review of day four leading to some improvement on the water today.

“We spent a lot of time revising our downwind speed and our mode so we could see how we were going relative to the fleet and relative to the leaders,” said Haylee. “We were quite happy with the way we went today, actually passing most of our boats downwind. So the time was well spent last night.”

Not in good shape were the Phillips brothers in their 49er after a start box incident that ended up in the protest room.

“On the start of the second race we were up for a starboard start,” said Sam Phillips. “We had about 10 seconds to go and a Danish boat that was trying to start on port came and actually T-boned us. There’s quite a bit of damage. Our wing’s got a bit of water in it and I hit my head a little bit but I’m ok.”

The crash clearly shook the team but they’ll be back.

Sam again: “The Incident really caused us to lose track and we weren’t able to stay in phase very well."

The boat will be fixed overnight. “We’ll be out there tomorrow. We’ve still got another two races in the morning so we’ll give it our best.”

Likewise Jim Colley and Shaun Connor who are leading the Aussie challengers and are the best placed to try and qualify Australia for the class at next year’s Olympic Games. There are four spots available and four teams currently in the box seat to take them - Spain, Austria, the Netherlands and Poland. If an Aussie crew can finish ahead of any of them then Australia will have the berth.

Primary concern for Jim and Shaun, currently in 12th place, is making the medal race. “We’ve got to sail to the best of our ability and if we do that, we’ll make the medal race,” said Jim. “We’re both really happy with the way we have sailed thus far and what we’ve learned from this regatta has been huge. At the end of the day if we can finish off with two and hopefully three awesome races tomorrow I’m a happy man and we’re a happy team. “

Not so happy were 49erFX sailors Tess Lloyd and Jaime Ryan, trying to put a brave face on not being in the gold fleet and not really succeeding despite a better result today.

“We finished on a high with a second,” said Tess.  “Obviously we are in the silver fleet which is where we don’t want to be, but I think it’s a good learning experience I suppose. We can experiment with some things and test some things and try and use it to our advantage and then in Geelong be back in the gold fleet.”

The final day of racing resumes at 9am AEDT tomorrow.

Australian Sailing Team (AST), Australian Sailing Squad (ASS) and other Australian (AUS) entries:

49er (88 boats)

Gold Fleet
12th Jim Colley and Shaun Connor (AUS) – 10,6,7,4,14,13,1,3,12,5,15,11,16 (134)
18th Will Phillips and Sam Phillips (AST) – 2,7,2,9, 10 ,8,11,11,7,21,2,17,21,18 (145)
24th David Gilmour and Lachy Gilmour (ASS) – 20,10,8,8,3,6,15,8,14,11,13,20,9,22 (162)

Silver Fleet
30th James Grogan and Max Paul (AUS) – 13,8,4,1,11,13,22,20,15,4,12,7,18,11 (158)
32nd Tom Needham and Joel Turner (ASS)- 14,14,6,18,1,7,15,18,8,31, (BFD)1,3,9 (162)
50th David O’Connor and Fang Warren (AUS)- 24,17,20,2,19,25,20,19,2,18,22,15,6,16 (226)

Bronze Fleet
58th Kurt Hansen and Simon Hoffman (ASS) – 12,13,15,18,19,17,21,20,1,1,2,14,1,6 (160)
66th Oliver Manton and Jack Lloyd (AUS) – 17,23,22,22,16,9,21,20,15,6,6,21,20,10 (227)
72nd John Cooley and Thomas Cunich (AUS) – 19,20,21,17,14,25,11,24,14,4,21,16,(BFD),27 (261)

49erFX (61 boats)

Silver Fleet
26th Amelia Stabback and Caitlin Elks (ASS) – 15,6,3,13,21,7,2,11,8,6,3,12 (129)
36th Tessa Parkinson and Ella Clark (AUS) –21,16,11,3,18,23,18,18,4,24,20,6,6 (188)
37th Natasha Bryant and Annie Wilmot (ASS) – 20,5,21,12,22,8,18,15,(BFD)913,22,3 (191)
39th  Tess Lloyd and Jaime Ryan (ASS) – 24,17,14,15,26,20,4,22,15,6,11,23,2 (199)
50th Laura Harding and Laura Thomson (AUS) – 29,29,26,26,12,23,20,6,9,27,31,17,18 (273)
59th Chloe Fisher and Eleanor Grimshaw (AUS) – 28,17,25,26,28,29,29,18,27,31,29,30 (348) 

Nacra17 (52 boats) 

Gold Fleet
2nd Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin (AST) – 6,13,9,3,4,1,4,4,4,1,13,8,2 (72)
12th Nathan and Haylee Outteridge (AST) – 3,5,3,6,3,2,1,24,15,13,5,14,16,5,6,3 (110)

Silver Fleet
28th Paul Darmanin and Lucy Copeland (ASS) – 14,11,15,17,18,8,12 ,6,5,5,5,6,3 (120)
48th Steve Brewin and Karma Randall (AUS) – 19,22,21,20,20,20,23,13,20,20,25,15 (238)
49th Emma Jones and Hugo Hamilton (AUS) – 25,20,23,25,23,17,22 ,11,22,17,22,23 (250)
50th Jake Liddell and Rita Booth (AUS) – 24,21,25,24,25,24,12,23,22,19,24 (266) 

2019 Hyundai 2019 Hyundai 49er, 49erFX, and Nacra 17 World Championships 
Royal Akarana Yacht Club, Auckland, New Zealand

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Photos: Beau Outteridge and Sailing Energy