Windsurfer retains title in New Caledonia

Windsurfing

Coral Headey has her sights firmly set on the Youth Olympic Games in China next August after another outstanding performance.

The Tauranga Yacht Club windsurfer successfully defended her girls' title at the New Caledonian Techno Nationals held in Noumea over the weekend from a fleet of about 25 - almost half of whom were girls.

The selection criteria to make the Youth Olympic Games are the New Zealand nationals in February in Auckland.

Headey's long-term association with Olympic great Bruce Kendall once again paid dividends before the Noumea event.

Over the school holidays she stayed in Auckland and took part in formal training organised by the class association and Yachting NZ. She then flew out to Noumea on October 12 for an additional week of training with Kendall before the New Caledonia nationals.

Headey travelled with her windsurfing buddy Carmen Haybittle, from Auckland, and along with Finn Croft - also of Auckland - made up a trio of Kiwi Techno sailors who were kindly hosted by families whose children also windsurfed.

This is a reciprocal agreement that seems to work well, whereby Kiwi families host the New Caledonian windsurfers when they come over for our nationals in February and Junior Sail Auckland.

The New Caledonian Techno Nationals is an awesome event to do, especially if competitors need to work on their strong wind techniques, which was Headey's main objective. It's also a great place for shortboarding - the weather is hot, the sea blue and the winds perfect for windsurfing.

After three races on Saturday Coral was lying 5th overall with a 5th, 3rd and 5th in semi-planing conditions. The wind increased for the Sunday with anything from 18-30+ knots at times and finishing with a long-distance race around the island worth double points.

Headey was narrowly beaten to 5th, although she did not mind too much as this was a vast improvement on her overall performance in the stronger winds compared to last year.

She finished a very creditable 5th overall and her teammate Haybittle was 7th. Croft, the only boy from NZ, finished 2nd overall, narrowly missing out on winning the New Caledonian nationals by 1 point.