2024 PredictWind Moth Oceania Championship Overall: Coutts wins Pre-Worlds
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-Wiorld.com/nz 2 Jan 11:49 GMT
1-2 January 2024
Mattias Coutts (NZL) - Day 2 - 2024 PredictWind Moth Oceania. Manly Sailing Club. January 2, 2025 © Sam Thom
Mattias Coutts (Manly SC) has won the Predictwind Moth Oceania Championship, by just 2pts from another Manly Youth sailor, Jacob Pye.
Sailing in 15-20kt offshore winds, Coutts and Pye sailed in different fleets for Day 2. Both won three of the four races sailed in each of their fleets, with the outcome that just two points separated the two sailors after two days racing.
Third overall was Riley Gibbs (USA) 10pts behind Coutts. A member of the US America's Cup sailing team from Barcelona. Gibbs was the top Open fleet sailor in an event which was dominated by Youth sailors - making for an interesting situation in the World Championship which gets under way on Saturday. Seven of the top ten in the regatta were Youth sailors.
Two more Youth sailors Seb Menzies (Murrays Bay) and Jack Bennett (Queen Charlotte YC) were the other two race winners on Day 2 with Coutts and Pye winning three apiece.
One of those expected to dominate the racing, Diego Botin (ESP) Olympic Gold medalist in the 49er class, and skipper of the Spanish SailGP team, was disqualified from Race 6 for not keeping clear of Nicolai Jacobsen (NOR). The Norwegian Youth sailor was unable to race after the incident and was awarded average points for the remaining three races in the series.
Botin further blotted his copybook being disqualified in Race 7 for a start rule infringement.
As with any pre-Worlds many sailors used the series as a warm-up event for the World Championship which starts on Saturday. Consequently the results table is littered with alphabet scores, a potentially regatta ending situation if the situation if competitors record similar scores in the Worlds.
The new Mackay Bieker V3 dominated the points table - being the boat of choice of all of the top 15 competitors in the regatta. For a closer look at the Mackay Bieker V3 click here.
For full results click here.
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