Sam’s summer of yacht racing

TEENAGE Hobart sailor Sam King has sailed in 22 highly competitive races over the past two weeks, in Laser Radials single-handed dinghies in Queensland and skippering a fully crewed SB20 sports boat in Hobart.

Yesterday, the Hutchins School student was back on the water again, contesting the Australian Sailing Youth Championships on Brisbane’s Waterloo Bay.

Sam, 17, flew to Brisbane directly after a steering Masterclass in the final race of the SB20 worlds on the River Derwent in which he finished 23rd and 29th overall in the 59 boat international fleet.

The previous week, he had finished fifth overall in the Laser Radial class at the Australian Open and Oceania championships in Brisbane.

Despite two weeks of international racing and travel, the young member of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania finished fourth in the first race of the Youth Championships, sailing his boat, Red, against a fleet of 38 Laser Radials.

In the next race he finished seventh and then weariness may well have set in, as Sam was back in 24th place. However, that’s still 10th overall.

RYCT club member William Sargeant is eighth overall, while the third placed Tasmanian is Max Gluskie, in 16th.

More than 200 sailors from every state and territory, plus Japan, France and the Cook Islands, are racing at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron.

In the two-handed 29er skiff class Rupert Hamilton and Fynn Sprott from the Sandy Bay Sailing Club are in fifth place, yesterday notching up a 9-2-6 score. Skiffy (Ethan Galbraith and Charles Zeeman) are 10th overall, with The Smiling Assassins (Alice Buchanan and Dervia Duggan) 12th overall and the secondplaced female crew.

Best-placed Tasmanians in the Laser 4.7 class are Matilda O’Donoghue (SBSC) in 20th and Abbey Calvert (RYCT) 27th in the fleet of 46 boats.