Teens’ fantastic voyage

TASMANIAN girls Alice Buchanan and Dervla Duggan are almost certainly again off overseas to represent Australia in the 29er skiffs at the World Sailing Youth Championships 2019.

The two 17-year-olds from Sandy Bay Sailing Club yesterday scored a runaway victory in the 29er girls division of the Australian Sailing Youth Championships, supported by the Australian Maritime College.

Emphasising their enhanced skills this summer in sailing the high-performance 29er, they swept home in the final race on Hobart’s River Derwent to take fifth place, finishing 10th overall in fleet of mainly boy crews.

Having already won the Australian 29er girl’s championship, they seem certain to be named in the Australian team for the Youth Worlds in Gdynia, Poland in July this year.

The final races for the 29ers underlined the skills of young Tasmanian sailors with 13year-old Oscar O’Donoghue and his 16-year-old crew Rupert Hamilton, also from Sandy Bay, winding up with a third and a win.

Fifth overall in the 32-boat fleet, they were only three points out of third overall with NSW sailors Archie Cropley and Max Paul the winners.

Ethan Galbraith and Charles Zeeman finished the regatta with a 5-7 result for sixth overall, Charlie Goodfellow and Jacob McConaghy were eighth and Alice Bucha- nan and Dervla Duggan 10th.

Tasmanian Will Sargent finished the regatta with a fifth place to be a creditable 10th overall in the Laser Radials, while Nick Smart crossed ninth to finish 12th overall.

World Laser Radial champion Zac Littlewood (WA) won eight of the ten races.