Westerners a force in first Noakes Youth Regatta
05/05/08
Three teams, ten races, one winner and a big lesson in dealing with adversity. This sums up the successful inaugural Noakes Youth Regatta which was conducted on Saturday on the stretch of Sydney Harbour between Noakes at Woolwich Dock and Cockatoo Island.
 In the first race of the day, sailed in a light morning westerly following the 10am start, the Indian Ocean Adventurers, named after Ryan Storey and Clarke Carter who are in training for a 6,000 kilometre row across the Indian Ocean next year, almost dipped out of the competition when their Magic 25 was holed in a collision with the Tassie Devils.
This became an important lesson in dealing with adversity for the young adventurers and the rest of the crew who were quickly taken ashore to collectively repair the 'hole large enough to walk through' using plywood and Sicaflex.
'The collision could have marked the end of the regatta for Ryan, Clarke and their crew but instead they fixed it and went straight back on out the racecourse,' said organiser and sponsor regatta Sean Langman who knows all about applying bandaids at sea while the clock ticks having suffered damage to this Open 66 Grundig/AAPT on more than one occasion while speeding southwards in the Rolex Sydney Hobart.
The eventual winner was Western Force, named after Noakes Youth sailor Chani Rigby from Perth who was part of the Noakes Youth Young Endeavour crew when the tall ship acted as a support vessel to the Rolex Sydney Hobart fleet.
Western Force sailed consistently all day, winning nine of ten races including the double points medal race sailed in an afternoon sea breeze, as they and the other two teams battled the trickly tidal flow between the shoreline at Woolwich and Cockatoo Island.
'There was a lot of team spirit, it was about young people getting together for a day of fun with plenty of banter between the boats,' said 23 year old Rigby.
Tassie Devils placed second and the Indian Ocean Adventurers third, Ryan Storey commenting, 'Saturday’s racing was about meeting everyone from the Noakes Youth team and for our team it was about pulling out or getting back out there. We learnt that the only limitations are those you place on yourself'.
The winning team automatically gains entry to the next scheduled Noakes Youth Regatta, to be held on Newcastle Harbour in a month’s time. As part of his commitment to stage these regattas, Langman will fly the winning team members to Newcastle from whichever Australian state they hail.
'The challenge is to make this a national competition, the idea being the more regattas you win the more you get to travel,' Langman said.
Yesterday many of the same group enjoyed a couple of turns around Sydney Harbour on a Sydney 39 as part of the CYCA’s Audi Winter Series and all took a turn on the helm.
'This aim of the weekend was to get a group of young people together and to teach them teamwork and about having goals,' added Langman. 'Having Ryan and Clarke with us as members of the Noakes Youth program and exploring their goal of spending three months at sea rowing in the Woodvale Challenge 2009 really impacted the group'.
Noakes Youth was founded in 2005 by Sean Langman for 14 – 25 year olds.
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