SAILING SUCCESS! Once again, we have experienced a terrific year in Schools’ Teams Sailing.
Although we lost a wealth of experience at the end of 2018 with several of our Year 12 students finishing distinguished service to our sport, we have been able to cover these departures within our existing squad and with the development of our juniors in active competition. We also welcomed new senior coach, Sam Danks, whose wealth of experience has been well received by all. Past team captain Brandon Demura also joined the coaching team, assisting with the development of the junior squad members. With most of our skippers competing at the national level and, in some cases, at international level, representing their country, they bring great skill and experience into the Schools competition. Sailing links across all school sectors and is organised by Australia Sailing, with a clear vision to develop the young sailor on a pathway all the way through to the Olympic competition. Subsequently, when we compete in the Saturday competition we are not sailing against novices, but the elite of junior sailing. In the past three years our main competition has been Brighton Grammar School. This season we have had the experience of Lachie Hughes and Pat Distefano bringing with them many seasons skippering for the School and the new skippering blood of Eliza Ewart, Cameron and Hamish Berry, as well as the calming influence of team Captain Grace Phillips. This combination has seen the Division 1 team consistently perform over the season’s regattas winning a majority of races over our nearest competitors Brighton Grammar School and The Peninsula School. Going into the last round of Saturday’s regatta at Albert Park Lake on 23 March, we were sitting clear of the competition and only
needed to maintain our position to win the Division 1 Saturday premiership. Poor sailing conditions in this round produced ‘ugly’ sailing and although we didn’t sail at our best, we still managed to hold off the other contenders to win the Series. The Victorian Championships saw us probably go in as the top seed, but many things can occur with so many schools competing and this year some teams struggled with the adverse weather conditions. After the preliminary rounds, we finished top of the table including a great win against Brighton Grammar School. We easily defeated Xavier in the quarter finals, and then Scotch in the semi final. Likewise, Brighton Grammar School easily accounted for its competition on its side of the draw and brought the inevitable match up in the final between Mentone and Brighton. To Brighton Grammar’s credit the team executed very clinical races in a best of three to take the points from Mentone. Clearly, the two top sailing teams in Victoria. Both teams will move on to the National Championships in Hobart in June, representing Victoria. We need to recognise the role that the whole squad has played in achieving this great result. A special mention must go to Hugo Gill one of our Year 12 skippers who has held the Division 2 sailors together and led from the front. We also acknowledge our Year 8s who have taken that big leap to racing in a team. And finally, we acknowledge the welcome support of all the parents who are so passionate about the sport and provide a great deal of encouragement to their sons and daughters. Congratulations to all. MAX MARROW HEAD OF SAILING
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