Friends in lead after first day of titles

THE Friends’ School Blue team is heading the leaderboard after day one of the Australian Secondary Schools Team Racing Championship being sailed on Hobart’s River Derwent, winning all of its five matches.

The Friends team was in great form, its boats finishing first and second in all but one match.

Tasmania’s Hutchins Gold team, Brighton Grammar, Iona College and Scots 1 each had four wins while Tasmanian girls school Fahan had three wins to be seventh and head the all-female division.

Twenty-four schools from all states are contesting the championships in open and all-female divisions with yesterday’s racing sailed on a mild winter’s day and light to moderate breezes.

“Despite losing some time this morning when the breeze died out, our race officer Nick Hutton achieved the best possible racing out of the conditions with 71 races completed,” Australian Team Racing Association secretary Paddy Hodgman said after the racing.

“A feature of the day’s racing, particularly once the breeze came back in, was the very noticeable improvement in the quality of the racing performances … with some particularly strong performances from Tasmanian teams.” FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD Laila Grafton, who has been sailing keelboats out of Bellerive Yacht Club since she was seven, will take a new step in her sailing career this long weekend.

She will work the bow of an S80 one-design yacht in the Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta on Melbourne’s Port Phillip. She is among the youngest of nearly 200 women sailors on a record 40 teams from Australia and New Zealand.