Josh Junior steals the lead in the finals at Warren Jones

Young New Zealand skipper Josh Junior has taken the 2012 Warren Jones International Youth Regatta, beating local Perth sailor David Gilmour 3 – 1 in a tense and hard fought final.

This self-effacing young man stepped ashore with a smile as wide as Cook Straight, heaping praise upon his crew, “that’s what you have a good crew for, to tell you what to do, I had Matty Stevens talking me through it all the way.”

Both Junior and Gilmour had come through the quarter-finals and semi-finals undefeated, and it was two days since David Gilmour had followed another boat across the finishing line.

However Josh Junior had been the rising star all through the event commenting, “towards the end we started to get it right,” and in the past he has been higher up the world rankings than his opponent.

The New Zealand crew had been clinical in their disposal of David Chapman and Jordan Reece in their quarter and semi-final encounters, so no one was under estimating their potential.

The Kiwis took the initial encounter, with Gilmour coming back to level the score, before Junior and his crew of James Sandell, Chris Jones, Matt Steven and Jono Clough took the next two and collected the trophy.

Other than the absence of sunshine, conditions for the final day were ideal, with a 15 knot southerly enough to penalize any boat handling errors, which kept the teams on their toes. 

The Warren Jones International Youth Regatta is managed by Swan River Sailing, and hosted this year by Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club. 

RESULTS:

Skipper                        Country                       

1. Josh Junior                   NZL

2. David Gilmour              AUS

3. Tristan Brown              AUS

4. Jordan Reece              AUS

5. Peter Nicholas             AUS

6. David Chapman          AUS

7.  Sam Gilmour             AUS

8.  Jay Griffin                 AUS

9.  Tim Coltman             NZL

10. Naoki Ichino             JPN

- John Roberson