Cate settles for third place after being pipped at the post

After a very encouraging third place at the Sail Melbourne Regatta, Michael Cate is looking forward to stamping his mark on national and international competition this year in the Laser Radial class.
Cate led the fleet by one point going into the final day of the recent competition in Melbourne but things didn't go his way on the final day and he was passed by two of the adult Australian competitors - leaving him third but with bragging rights as the first youth finisher in the fleet of 28.
"It was a good regatta for me but it could have been better. I was leading going into the final race but then I was pipped at the post," he said.
The former splash sailor wasn't helped by Melbourne's unseasonal summer weather - or the regatta organisers - with difficult conditions and technical faults on the course making his final day a tough one.
"The last two races weren't so flash but it wasn't all down to me, the organisers set the course wrong and put the first mark where the second mark should have been," he said.
Cate excels in strong wind racing and he had the race - and the series - in the bag with a 100m lead sailing in 18 knot winds until the officials realised their mistake and called off the race.
By the time the race was restarted the wind had dropped away, leaving the race to be sailed with a three metre chop running and just 10 knots of wind.
"There were massive random [wind] shifts out of nowhere, I've never sailed in a place with such big shifts that came out of nowhere without any indication - so it was an unusual last day and although it went downhill from there, it was good experience and a third is a third," he said.
The experience of starting a series from scratch, rather than knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents - was an experience that will stand him well in the future.
"It was great to go over and sail against a totally new bunch of guys that you've never even met before and try and figure out to beat them," he said.
Attending the big Australian regatta was a new experience for the Whangarei 17-year-old, in more than one way as he got to attend his first overseas competition without one or both of his parents to help out.
"It was my first international regatta I've been to without my parents being there too, which turned out to be easier than I thought to sort out but probably because racing never started earlier than 12 o'clock," he said.
Cate is now preparing for the two big regattas in the domestic competition, the New Zealand Championships in late January in Torbay and Sail Auckland competition - both of which are selection trials to make the New Zealand teams for the European summer.
The ISAF Youth worlds in Zadar, Croatia in mid-July are a target for Cate, as well as the Laser Radial Youth World Championships in La Rochelle, France at the end of July.