2 March 2010

Squadron's Lucinda Whitty wins women's match race

By Pam Scrivenor and Jennifer Crooks, edited by Peter Campbell

Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron member Lucinda Whitty has won the Marinassess Women’s Match Racing Regatta in convincing style. She sailed faultlessly throughout the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s regatta last weekend without dropping a single race, to have her name engraved on the trophy for the second consecutive year.

Left to right: Nicky Souter, Lucinda Whitty, Event Sponsor Runow & Katie Pellew

Photo: CYCA staff

Whitty, a member of the Australian Sailing Development Squad, sailed with a crew combination of champion sailors Nicky Souter on main and Katie (nee Spithill) Pellew on the bow.

At the presentation, Whitty thanked her crew for sailing with her out of their usual positions, as the Australian Sailing Development Squad is known for making crew combinations mix-up from their preferred roles. 

The Finnish team of Silja Lehtinen and Mikaela Wulff, who sailed the regatta with two Australians, Samantha Boyd and Krystal Weir,  finished in second place.  Amanda Scrivenor (CYCA) with Olivia Price and Angela Farrell, sailed a solid regatta, only dropping three races to Whitty and Lehtinen in the round robins.

Unfortunately, the second round robin could not be completed within the time limit. The start of racing was delayed for two hours, with  the breeze not filling in from the south until the afternoon and, according to the sailing instructions, the last time for a start signal was 1530hrs. 

An averaging method was used to finalise the results, but Whitty was always going to be the stand-out winner.