16 of our RQYS members competed in the Sail Melbourne event held at Royal Brighton Yacht Club that was held across 4 days from Thursday December 30th to Sunday 3rd December 2023. And didn’t they represent our club well!

It was a mixture of very experienced sailors with the young up and comers dealing with the challenging conditions Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay can offer which included consistently strong winds, big waves and shifts. Thursday and Saturday races were held in vicinity of 20 knots increasing over the day with Southerly winds creating some big waves for surfing downwind. Sunday finally making way for sun and steady winds.

There was a great battle in the ILCA6 class. In a strong fleet of 36 competitors, Mara Stransky took the regatta win in 1st place. Francis Beebe finished 8th including a 4th in one of her heats.  Myles Wilson and Hugo Ralph also finishing with places in the top third of the fleet with Myles in 11th and Hugo in 13th. Glen Beebe, our Master entrant, also tackled the cold and windy conditions showing great resilience over the 4 days.

We had 5 RQYS Youth Squad members competing in the ILCA4 class with 4 of them finishing in the top 5 positions. Chase Taylor and Caterina Meyer battled it out on and off the course. Chase finished in first place, Caterina second with Blair Dobson and Molly Schotte not far behind in 4th and 5th. Newcomer Wilbur Bright had a challenging few days but persevered finishing 13th with his best result on Day 4 with a 6th and 7th. It was a fantastic opportunity to learn from all the experienced sailors.

It was also wonderful to see Mara rigging up next to the RQYS ILCA youth squad as well as providing words of encouragement to the team on the rigging lawn and on the course with comments such as ‘Don’t stop hiking!’ as she sailed past or ‘I feel it in my bones it is your day today’.

RQYS also had members representing in IQ Foil, Kite Foil and 470 classes. Special mention to Samantha Costin who took out the win for the IQ Foil Women’s fleet. Well done Sam!

Thank you to Royal Brighton Yacht club for putting on a awesome event as well as the wonderful volunteers which included 4 volunteers representing RQYS.

 Well done to all competitors, you did our club proud!

By Wilber Bright