For the first time in the fifty year history of the class,
an all girl crew has taken out the Open Australian Championship in the
competitive Flying 11 class.
Zoe Dransfield and Pearl Twomey, sailing ‘Nomad’, are the new Australian Flying
11 Champions.
The regatta was held by Port Stephens Amateur Sailing Club in the third week of
January. The fleet of 71 boats representing Tasmania, NSW and Queensland
completed 11 races in a range of conditions, predominantly strong ENE
seabreezes. The girls put together a polished performance, managing to keep a
consistent score card, discarding a 7th and a 4th, leaving their results all in
the top three.
The racing was very tight between the top four boats, who were all from Manly
16 SSC. On the final day of racing, Jamie and Sam Stodart in ‘Cool Running’ or
Alex and Sophie Hart in ‘Fanging’ could have won the regatta by winning the
last two races. With steely determination, Zoe and Pearl started the
penultimate race midline and used their speed and excellent crew work to
control the fleet for a comfortable win, securing them the title with a race to
spare.
With both Stodart’s and Hart’s on equal points, pressure was high going into
the last race t determine 2nd and 3rd overall. With a classy final race win,
Alex and Sophie finished 2nd overall with the Stodart’s in 3rd place.
Fourth overall was Tony Harrison and Liam Karunaratne in ‘Dynamite’. The first
interstate boat was Luke Rodgers and Rory Meehan in ‘Firefly’ from RQYS in 5th
place. Luke Rodgers won the Junior Skipper trophy.
In 6th place was Luke Sullivan and Luca Dawson in ‘Hammertime’ from Belmont 16
SSC who also took home the top first year skipper prize.
Other race winners included Sam Skeen and Byron Lowe in ‘Oscar’ from Hornsby
Kuringai SC and ‘Schmick’ from Belmont sailed by Cameron Burt and Noah
Steenson.
PRO Peter ‘Snubby’ Moore did a brilliant job with managing a large fleet over
multiple races each day.
In a nice twist, this is Zoe’s second Nationals win, having crewed for brother
Jesse when they won in 2016 also in ‘Nomad’.
The only other female skipper to have won the open National Championship is
Nicky Souter with brother Craig crewing in 2001.
The Flying 11 Class has always enjoyed a high female participation rate and at
this year’s Nationals, 40% of the 142 sailors were girls.
Many of Australia’s top female sailors have learned their race raft from the
Flying 11 class including names such as Lyndal Coxon, Vanessa Dudley, Jacqui
Bonnitcha, Nicky Souter, Olivia Price, Lisa Darmanin, Natasha Bryant and Emma
Jones. Around half of the current crop of NSW YST females in the Nacra, 29er
and 420 classes are ex-Flying 11 girls. Zoe Dransfield has just sailed her
first season in the 29er class with brother Jesse crewing and has now paired up
with Madelaine for the coming season.
Next years Flying 11 Nationals are to be held at RQYS in the third week of
January.