Manly seem certain to win the 13s Championship, but who?
One thing is certain at the Australian 13ft Championships on Hervey Bay: a Manly Skiff Club boat will take out the title.
The hard part is predicting which of a range of contenders will be left holding the silverware come Saturday night. Manly boats have dominated proceedings as the regatta hits the halfway point, claiming nine of the top 10 places on the overall pointscore.
Wins have been shared between Harken (Heidi Bates/Orlando Sadlik), CyberTechGroup.org (Ash Napper/Theo Franklin) and The Kitchen Maker (Tayla Lees/Oliver Barrett) across the first four heats.
It’s left CyberTechGroup.org as the provisional leader with five heats to go. The Kitchen Maker is next from Botany Scaffold (Sophie Hart/Hugh Skeen), Harken and Sail Media (Ben Milham/Liam Karunaratne).
But with a drop to come after heat six, Harken appears to have the upper hand. A second and two firsts has the NSW 13ft champion in the box seat.
“We’re pretty happy with the way it’s gone so far apart from the OCS (over the line at the start) in heat two,” Heidi said. “That will be our drop hopefully and we just need to be up there in the remaining races. “We are having so much fun up here sailing in the different conditions and being away from home.
“This fleet is so good and the racing is that close that we know we need to keep doing well to stay up there.”
The Kitchen Maker is one of those boats pushing Harken all the way. Skipper Tayla Lees said: “To know we can be fast and be one of the top boats is great.”
Bates and Sadlik took a slightly different preparation going into the Aussie 13s, competing in a series of 29ers regattas to ensure they didn’t lose their edge over the Christmas-New Year period. Remarkably, they adapted that quickly they were able to finish fourth in the 29ers national championships.
“They are surprisingly so different to sail even though they look similar (to a 13),” Heidi said. “We just wanted to keep sailing during that time and work on a few things. It was a lot of fun and I think it’s helped us up here in the 13s.”
Meanwhile, 14-year-old Ash Napper remains in the hunt to pull off a rare family double. Ash’s older brother Coby crewed for Theo Franklin on last year’s championship-winning boat before moving into the 16s.
With Franklin moving to for’ard hand, Ash has stepped up as skipper to guide Cybtertech to a win, two fourths and a sixth. A strong showing over the remaining heats could see him emulate his older sibling.
Noakes 13 (Tom Hughes/Noah Chenhall) in 11th place is the best positioned St George boat, finishing inside the top 10 in three of the four races. Tom will link with younger brother Charlie in the Flying 11 Australian Championships at St George next week.
The 13s nationals regatta resumes with heats five and six on Thursday.
Words Adam Lucius
Photos Promocean Media
