DBSC sailors excel at the ILCA 2025 Nationals

All photos courtesy RQYS

James Tudball reports:

Twenty-two DBSC members recently competed at the 2025 Oceania & AUS ILCA Open & Youth Championships, held at Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron on the 1st - 8th January. There were very strong fleets (in terms of quality and quantity) across all three rigs, indicating that Laser sailing is alive and well in Australia.

There was a fleet of 92 ILCA 4’s and a fleet of 85 ILCA 6’s, meaning these two classes were separated into separate flights, culminating in a Finals series with gold and silver fleets.  The ILCA 7’s had a smaller fleet of 46 boats, but there were certainly no slouches in that fleet.  As John Sweeny, one of our ILCA 7 sailors remarked, 'The Nationals were very educational!  It was good to dust the cobwebs off and see how fast the pros can sail these boats!'. Conditions-wise, it was a moderate to windy regatta, with lots of hiking (and no lay day to recover!).  It started to lighten off towards the end, but it was a physically demanding regatta overall.

Congratulations to all DBSC sailors (and the parent pit crews) who completed the regatta.  There were many fantastic on-water results. 

Also, a thank you to Zac West and Ellen Juhasz who worked as coaches for our DBSC Reach Youth sailors.

We look forward to hearing more regatta tales from you all back at the club soon!

OVERALL RESULTS FOR DBSC MEMBERS 

ILCA 4
Gold Fleet
9th  Raph McLachlan
16th  Ben Costandi
32nd  Harriet McLachlan
35th  Tucker McKeon
43rd  Elouise Morgan
46th  Charlotte Jenkins
Silver Fleet
1st  Olivia Aitken
3rd  Zoe Allen
39th Lucy Balderstone

ILCA 6
Gold Fleet
7th  Healy Ryan (and 1st U17)
37th Sara Bruce
Silver Fleet
12th  Jack Restuccia
14th  Miles Greenwood
30th  Daniel Leupen

ILCA 7
6th  Finn Alexander
8th  Campbell Patton
12th  Daniel Coastandi
13th Zander Bijkerk
16th  Julian Taylor
23rd  Hamish Crabb
27th  Conor Kellett
31st  John Sweeny

CLICK HERE for the full results sheets