Napper hails ‘winning culture’ and Flying 11s as the key to Manly’s sailing success
A quick glance at the results from Saturday’s first pointscore race of the season tells you all you need to know about the conveyor belt of quality sailors emerging from Manly 16ft Skiff Club’s enviable junior program. Five of the top six placegetters in the 13s division emerged from last year’s Flying 11 ranks, while five of the top seven in the 16s are former F11 Australian Champions. It’s a phenomenal show of strength.
Rob Napper has a three-decades long association with the sport and is well positioned to talk about the program at Manly, having held various junior committee positions over the past 15 years. “There has been a winning culture ingrained in Manly’s junior program for generations, even before my time in the F11s 30-odd years ago,” he said.
“And this has really flowed through to the success that we’ve seen in the senior classes in the last 20 years. “The Junior Committee put a lot of work into expanding the coaching program for this season and the board have supported a significant increase in funding to support the ongoing success of the junior fleet. “It is the junior racing, particularly the F11s, that really sets these sailors up for future success.”
A familiar name – Moonen Yachts (Daniel Turner) – filled the top step of the podium on Saturday, but the next two places were taken by new skippers to the fleet, IMEI (Joel Beashel) and Davis Marine Brokerage (Nathan McNamara).
Beashel is just 16 years of age and a former F11 national champion with 29ers international experience under his harness.
You will be hearing a lot more about him as the season progresses.
The promising Dransfield siblings – Zoe and Tyler – finished fifth and seventh aboard Red Pumps Red and Red Pumps respectively in another statement from the youth brigade.
Napper, who had a bird’s eye view of the action as a crew member alongside Beashel, is pleased with the youngsters’ progress but warns there is still plenty of work to do before the 16s rookies are the finished product. “The transition from 13s to 16s is still pretty tough, mainly because of the quality of the well- established crews already in the 16 fleet,” Napper said. “Almost every boat has a former State or Australian champion on board but we are really starting to see a lot of former 13 sailors represented among the top 10 boats in the 16 fleet.
“Overall, the quality of sailors coming up through the 13s is really good and they are coming out of the junior classes with sound knowledge of race strategy and boat-on-boat tactics. “They’re just very raw when it comes to managing the power of the 16, and the only way to get around that is time on the water.”
Napper’s son Coby is living proof the system works. The reigning 13s national champion has joined with Georgia Clancy and James Doyle on Botany Scaffold (formally Outback Marine) for his first year of “on-the-job-training” with the 16s.
“I’m not expecting to set the world on fire on the first year but learning off the older guys and Dad will be good,” he said.
“The juniors’ program is a really good set up. You’ve got great coaches and you’re out on the water every week getting to know what to do next. “We’re on the water a lot at Manly and the competition between all the younger sailors is pretty good and that attracts others to the club.”
In the 13s on Saturday, Harken (Heidi Bates and Orlando Sadlik) led the fleet home from Cybertech (Ash Napper – Theo Franklin) and Buck & Simple (Lachie Jensen & Peter Jensen).
