New Zealand's Matt Stechmann has narrowly edged out fellow Kiwi Luke O'Connell to claim the OK Dinghy World Championship in Australia, taking gold by one point.
A 10th place finish in the final race of the regatta was just enough to take out the world title, with O'Connell claiming thesilver after winning a three-way points tie with defending champion Roger Blasse (AUS), who had to settle for third, and New Zealand's Greg Wilcox.
In all five Kiwis finished in the top 10, with Matt Coutts sixth and Ben Morrison seventh. After a week of uncooperative weather at Black Rock, Australia, the regatta wrapped up in perfect Port Phillip conditions. Going into the final day, the fleet needed two more races to get in a valid series, so there was audible relief as the sailors arrived yesterday morning to a sailable 15-20 knots on the bay.
Stechmann said like everyone he was frustrated by the conditions over the week, but he did not let it impact on his focus.
"It's unfortunate that we only sailed five races, but you just have to deal with what's in front of you. I was aware it was only going to be five races and I wasn't going to let it faze me. I was just taking it one race at a time and not doing anything silly. In the past I've been known to roll the dice a little bit too much, and be the architect of my own demise," he said.
"I was quite confident that I could perform good enough today to give myself a chance. But whether I woke up this morning thinking today I would win the worlds, probably not."
"I am absolutely over the moon to be honest. My goal for this regatta was top five, I thought that would be a good effort here and just to really focus for 2016 worlds in 18 months times. I am just stoked about this."
Results after five races (one discard) 1 Matt Stechmann NZL 18 2 Luke O'connell NZL 19 3 Roger Blasse AUS 19 4 Greg Wilcox NZL 19 5 Michael Williams AUS 21 6 Matt Coutts NZL 25 7 Ben Morrison NZL 35 8 Jorgen Svendsen DEN 37 9 Mark Skelton AUS 38 10 Mark Jackson AUS 40
