Maraetai Sailing Club’s Kate Rasmussen and Madi Russell have won the female world title at the RS Feva World Championships in Weymouth, England.
The championships concluded with New Zealand crews winning both the open and female world championships, sail-world.com has reported.
Both championships were sailed as part of the RS Games 2022, held in the 2012 Olympic Sailing Regatta at Weymouth and Portland. The event, held as part of the 2022 RS Games, attracted a big fleet of 185 crews.
The RS Games – comprising various championships for RS Sailing manufactured classes, attracted an entry of more than 1000 crews.
Open World Champion, Simon Cooke won his second open title, sailing with new crew Arthur Rebbeck (both Royal Akarana YC).
By dint of a decision within the RS Feva class, the title of World Champion is conferred on the top under 18 year old crew. Britain’s Joseph Jones and Charlie Howard were second overall and 2022 Class World Champion.
Finland’s Freddie Sunderland and Stella Nygard placed third overall in the open fleet and were runners-up for the world title.
Kate Rasmussen and Madi Russell (Maraetai Sailing Club) – both 13-years-old – finished 8th in the Open fleet and won the female world championship title.
The third New Zealand crew Ashton Cooke and Oskar Masfen (Royal Akarana YC) placed 48th in the 62 boat Open Gold fleet.
New Zealand coach Wade Tresadern reported on the final day of racing sail-world.com:
“The final day bought us a delay onshore while we waited for a stable breeze to fill in.
Eventually a SE 6-10kts was ready for the crews to do battle. Simon and Arthur continued their consistent series with a first in Race 7 and a second in the final Race 8 to come away as open world champions for 2022.
“This was Simon’s second world title technically, scoring back to back wins. Arthur has picked up his first world title at 12-years-old.
“And to go with that open world title, our Maraetai girls also became 2022 Female World Champions.
“They came into the day with a 3 point deficit to a really strong Netherlands girls crew.
“They banked a 10th place in Race 7 to go into the final race with an 8 point advantage meaning they had to be within eight places of the NED girls at the finish of the next race to clinch the title. After a black flag general recall.
“The nails were getting thin with the parents. But the girls recovered with incredible pace upwind and good fleet management to finish Race 8 in 23rd place besting the Netherlands girls by 16 places to claim the title.”
