Dragon Prince Philip Cup at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club - Day 1
by John Roberson 6 Jan 13:57 UTC
4-10 January 2025
Dragon Prince Philip Cup Day 1 © John Roberson
Richard Lynn and his crew sailing Gordon have grabbed an early lead at the end of the first day of the Prince Philip Cup, the Dragon Australian Championships, being hosted by the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club on Perth's Swan River. Sailing with Ethan Prieto-Low and Adam Branz-Verca, the Gordon team chalked up a second then a first place to hold a three point advantage over second place Grant Alderson skippering French Connection.
After a disappointing warm up series in which Lynn finished fifth the team put in a big effort to reconfigure the boat. "We stayed out after the last race yesterday and adjusted a few things," Richard explained, "then we had a long evening on the dock re-setting and were down here early this morning to do some more work."
Amongst the many changes they made were a completely different set of sails, and he said he had a long late night phone call to his German sailmaker. He admitted the result of all this might be purely psychological, but it worked.
Grant Alderson kept his end of day comments simple, "we've got two keepers," he said, referring to a pair of third places. Sailing with Emma Shand, Matt Maxted and Alice Travlos French Connection was always in the hunt in both races.
Two points behind Alderson in third place is Willy Packer's Scoundrel, the winner of the warm up series. Having won the first race of the day convincingly Packer and his team had an uncharacteristic seventh place in the second heat of the day.
"We broke our own rule," he said by way of explanation for the poor result, "we said we wouldn't get involved in a mess on the starting line, and we did. We were at the pin end with too many other boats."
It was a long day on the water for the fleet of twenty four Dragons, with a two and a half hour wait on a glassy Swan River before the fabled sea breeze was able to establish itself. With the first race starting in a comfortable 10 knot breeze, the conditions remained manageable, never exceeding 15 knots throughout the afternoon.
Results after Day 1: (top five)
| Pos | Sail No | Boat Name | Skipper / Crew | R1 | R2 | Pts |
|---|
| 1 | AUS222 | Gordon | Richard Lynn‑Ethan Prieto‑Low / Adam Brenz‑Verca (RFBYC) | 2) | 1) | 3 |
| 2 | AUS211 | French Connection | Grant Alderson‑Emma Shand / Matt Maxted / Alice Travlos (RFBYC) | 3) | 3) | 6 |
| 3 | AUS214 | Scoundrel | William Packer‑Julian Harding / Jock Packer (RFBYC) | 1) | 7) | 8 |
| 4 | AUS203 | Tatsu | Andrew Foulkes‑Andrew Bennett / Matthew Stafford (RFBYC) | 5) | 4) | 9 |
| 5 | AUS184 | Taranui | Stephen Locke‑Christian Gallagher / John Suriano (RFBYC) | 6) | 6) | 12 |
rfbyc.asn.au/dragon-australian-championship-2025