29er bronze for Paul & Cropley at Youth Sailing World Championships

Max Paul and Archie Cropley wrapped up the 2019 Hempel Youth Sailing World Championships in Gdynia, Poland, with a bronze medal for the Australian Youth Sailing Team.

The NSW Institute of Sport duo finished their Boy’s 29er event behind Norway and Finland to come third after an intense final race and with only two points separating them from Great Britain in fourth place.

The bronze medal follows the gold that fellow NSWIS athletes Will Cooley and Rebecca Hancock claimed in the Nacra 15 a few days earlier.

The pair from Middle Harbour Yacht Club went into the final day ranked third with a small buffer to fourth place and secured bronze with a 9-10 in the last two races.

Paul and Cropley managed to hold their nerves, but made it a very close affair in the process and a pretty stressful one for everyone watching as well, including their coach Harry Morton.

“We went out today trying to catch five points to silver and we attacked pretty hard in the first race. But we had to do penalty turns and ended up not where we wanted to, so we burnt a lot of that gap to third,” Max Paul said about the start of the day.

“And at the end of the day we started the last race with three boats all within catching distance of us. In the pre-start we then had a bit of a tangle with the French team (5^th) and got rolled off pretty easily of the start.”

“So we were pretty deep to start off with and the British who were only nine points behind us heading into the last race were winning around the top mark so we had a lot of work to catch right up.

“At the end of the race we caught up to tenth and we didn’t think it was enough, but the British lost their first place right at the end to come second and we managed to hold bronze by two points, which was pretty stressful.” Max Paul described the day’s events.

“A big shout-out to Australian Sailing, our parents, our club, Middle Harbour Yacht Club as well as our home coach Mike Fletcher. We wouldn’t be here without him and we are just grateful to be able to come here and are pretty stoked about the medal,” Paul wrapped up a successful week of racing.  

“It’s great to finish the week with a bronze medal, especially after a pretty light week. Today we had lighter conditions again and we did really well considering how big we are compared to the rest of the fleet and we are really happy with how we have gone,” Archie Cropley added recapping the week.  

“We really stepped up and worked hard for the position we got. We also made the most of the one day with the breeze and I think it would have been a different story if we had had one more breezy day.”