A win in Sydney for NZL 49er sailors

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, NZL Sailing Team’s 49er sailors, have taken a convincing victory over former World Champs in the class Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen at Sail Sydney Regatta.

Image: 49er fleet on Sydney Harbour by Jeff Crow

The four day regatta which wrapped up in Sydney yesterday, is a prelude to the opening event in the ISAF World Sailing Cup series for 2010-2011 which starts in Melbourne on Monday.

Rivals on the water, and mates ashore, Burling and Tuke are deservedly delighted with their win over the Aussie sailors who have an impressive recent record having won all but one of eleven regattas sailed since joining forces.

“We're only the second ever to beat them (Outteridge/Jensen) so it's pretty cool,” said Blair Tuke in the wrap-up report from the event.

Quick-fire and fast racing on the skiff course allows for plenty of races and in Sydney they packed in twelve races over four days. Burling and Tuke won half of those, and had done enough to secure a place atop the podium without even sailing the final race. Despite this they did sail, finishing on a high with a win and eleven points clear of the Aussie hot shots.

The next best placed of the kiwis sailing in the Olympic classes in Sydney was Josh Junior in the largest fleet at the regatta – the Laser. Despite a couple of big scores over the first half of the event Junior found form over the final two days just pipping a local for the bronze podium spot.

2010 ISAF Sailor of the Year Tom Slingsby won the Laser event with Jeemin Ha of Korea coming in second place.

Silver medallists at this year’s Youth Worlds for New Zealand, Alexandra Maloney and Sam Bullock were first in a small fleet in the 29erXX event.
And Paralympic sailors Tim Dempsey and Jan Apel finished second among seven boats in the SKUD18 double-handed mixed crew event.

Racing starts at Sail Melbourne on Monday, where a larger contingent of kiwis will be lining up for six days of racing. 

2010 Sail Sydney
New Zealand’s Final Results

49er (14 boats)
1st Peter Burling and Blair Tuke
5th Marcus Hansen and Aaron Hume-Merry

Laser (48 boats)
3rd Josh Junior

29er XX (5 boats)
1st Alexandra Maloney and Sam Bullock

Laser Radial (22 boats)
10th Rachel Basevi

SKUD18 (7 boats)
2nd Tim Dempsey and Jan Apel

See the regatta website for full results and more information. You can now follow the NZL Sailing Team via Facebook.