Andrew Wills and his team on board Raging Hormones have risen above a bumper sixteen boat fleet to win the 2019 Harken Young 88 National Championships in Auckland over the weekend.

It was challenging regatta to get going with very light 5-7 knot winds throughout the day on Saturday, meaning it was a tricky day of sailing in the Young 88’s which are known to thrive off a decent breeze – but the Race Management team managed to get three races in the books. Sunday was even lighter, with only two races sailed, but this took the overall total to the required five races needed for the event.

However this didn’t stop the fleet from having some great light wind battles and tight one design racing out on the water off northern leading buoy -“It’s a very close fleet up and down the spectrum, it doesn’t matter what the skill level is there’s always a battle going on somewhere on the course – whether it’s between first and second, fourth and fifth or tenth and twelfth, so it’s all the way up there is plenty of good racing to be had.” – Mark Bond Slipstream.

Young 88 royalty was also on the water to witness the 2019 edition of the event, in the form of Young 88 designer Jim Young – “Somebody said to me the other day – and I chose to believe them of course – that it is [the Young 88} the best all-purpose boat that they know, and I couldn’t help but agree with them.”

Jim Young – Image (c) Rachel von Zalinski- Live Sail Die

In comparison to how they finished the regatta – it was a slightly slow start to the weekend for Wills and Raging Hormones, starting with a fourth place in the first race. The team then came good pretty quickly, going on to win three of the four remaining races as well as adding a second place finish to their total, allowing them to blitz the fleet on the overall standings.

Mark Bond’s Slipstream came home in second place overall, a whopping nine points behind the winners – with Harry Thurston and his team on Undercover rounding out the podium in third.

This is the second year in a row that Raging Hormones has taken the victory – and the third time since 2015. In fact only Raging Hormones and Slipstream have taken home the Tanaka Cup in the last five events.

Wills was happy to come away with the win, even though there wasn’t as much racing as he would have liked – “Yeah we’re pretty happy, we had a great team on board this weekend and even though we wish had got a bit more breeze and a few more races in – we’re pretty pleased to come away with the win. I’m really stoked with the great job that the Young 88 Class Association did behind the scenes to put this event on, it’s the most entries we’ve had in a long time. A big thanks to Harken for sponsoring the event and to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron for putting it on.”

Winning Raging Hormones Crew – Image (c) Rachel von Zalinski- Live Sail Die

Full results can be found HERE

By Andrew Delves RNZYS PR & Communications Manager