The Sailing World Cup Melbourne enjoyed excellent racing across the eight courses laid off the St Kilda sailing precinct on Port Phillip last week. Over four days the sailors encountered a range of conditions that tested their skills, fitness and patience, with the VIS sailors coming away with some positive results.
Keeping up the spinnaker became the winning move for VIS athlete Tess Lloyd and crew mate Caitlin Elks (WA) in the Women’s Skiff – 49erFX medal race.
Only one point separated the pair from the leading New Zealand crew and it all came down to the final few metres in a nail-biting final.
Fellow VIS athlete Oliver Tweddell had an unusual task at hand after there were only two boats left in the Finn class, which made for a week of match racing between Croatia and Australia.
It was physically challenging and tight racing across the week with Oliver just taking the win and making it his first gold medal at his home event in Melbourne.
Tom Klemens and Tim Hannah finished second in the Men’s Two Person Dingy – 470M class, while Jeremy O’Connell was the top ranked Australian Laser sailor finishing third behind Singapore’s Colin Cheng and Thomas Saunders (NZL) in second.
