George G Match Race Champ!

George Gautrey takes out the title!

Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron
NESPRESSO YOUTH INTERNATIONAL MATCH RACING CHAMPIONSHIPS
12th – 16th February 2014 Auckland, New Zealand

GAUTREY WINS ALL KIWI FINAL TO CLAIM THE 2014 NESPRESSO YOUTH INTERNATIONAL MATCH RACING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2014!

SUNDAY 16TH FEBRUARY 2014
Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club’s George Gautrey pulls off a fantastic regatta to win the NESPRESSO Youth International Match Racing Championships 2014.

In the Final – the battle of the Georges - Gautrey, versus RNZYS Lion Foundation Youth Training Programme member Brasell, lost the first of three matches by 17 seconds before fighting back to take the last two and deciding matches by 8 and 17 seconds respectively. “Ecstatic” and “speechless” were the words Gautrey used to describe the win. When asked about defending his title at next year’s event Gautrey said emphatically “I’ll be back!”

The other George, Brasell, commented “He’s a fast sailor and you can’t pull him back once he’s away” about his 2 – 1 loss. “In match one we had a good start and led him around the track; the other races we started badly and tried everything we could but just couldn’t claw our way back into it; he sailed really well, full credit to him.”

In the Semi-Final battle of the Wellingtonians Gautrey, the younger of the two Royal Port Nicholson skippers, had an epic duel against his older counterpart, Sam Mackay. Starting the day 1 – 0 down, Mackay came out fighting this morning winning the next two races to take a 2 – 1 lead over his young rival. Unfortunately, that was going to be the only victories he could muster as young Gautrey came fighting back to win the 4th match by 8 seconds and sudden death 5th match by a convincing 19 seconds claiming local bragging rights. The losses to Mackay must have hurt; “Going down to Sam really tested our team, but we came back and pulled it off” said Gautrey.

See George winning and getting his rewards.