The course was tricky and breeze fickle as nine teams contested Queensland Match Racing Championship in the Open, Youth and Women’s categories on the river at Mooloolaba. 

The north, north-east breeze presented even the three local teams with a challenge. At the bottom mark the air was clear and just a little gusty, but at the top mark, right next to The Wharf Mooloolaba, it was softy, patchy and deadly for those teams that didn’t know how to handle the conditions. 

The overall leaders after 13 matches in the Round Robin Series are Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club’s Klade Hauschildt and Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s (CYCA) Murray Jones, both sitting on five wins. In third place is another CYCA team lead by Evan Walker.  Back in the group of three wins is host Mooloolaba Yacht Club’s team skippered Mitch Kennedy.

The match of the day was between Jones and his coach, Walker.  They have raced each other “too many times” for Jones to remember. “He (Walker) knows all our ins and outs,” Jones said.

The match between them was intense. There wasn’t much noise, just pure concentration and a lot of practising what the coach would be recommending if he wasn’t on the opposing boat.  

“In the dial up, it was pretty close. We managed to fall out onto port without hitting him. Then he fell out to port, trimmed on a bit and then drifted down onto us. So that got one on him. On the start we were pretty close to the line so we back-winded the jib with about 15 seconds to go and go under and still managed to start level with him. 

“Up the first work we managed to get the right side of the course and around the mark in front of him. In the second work, we split up the top and we came in at the right again and had a dial down which he was really slow in so we managed to get a penalty on him there and shot straight through the dial down to the top mark and extend,” Jones said. 

Jones won the match to put his score at five out of six.  Walker finished the day with four wins from six matches. 

The general consensus is that this new Match Racing venue is perfect for this type of exciting, close-quarter racing. The teams have found it shifty, but good. “It suits Match Racing. It’s close, but competitive. It keeps the racing nice and close. The corners are usually the exciting part of Match Racing and his venue emphasises that.”

Racing continues tomorrow from 10am with the final few Round Robin matches and then into the Semi-Finals and Final. 

For full results, go www.mooloolaba.yachting.org.au/default.asp?Page=68763&;MenuID=Results/c21718/34080/

Details of the event are on www.mooloolaba.yachting.org.au

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