Favourite makes emphatic early statement

Bet against Aucklander Craig Satterthwaite retaining his Elliot 5.9 national sailing championship title at your peril.

The winner of the last three national championships, Satterthwaite and his crew of Richard Bearda and Matt Mitchell on Rough and Ready, won three of yesterday's five races and finished sixth and fifth in the others on the first day of the three-day, 12-race, 14-boat nationals being raced off Napier. With discards coming into play today, it's hard to see the bloke with America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race experience on his racing CV being dethroned.

"They are so consistent and don't fall down the leaderboard too much. They don't often make mistakes and, if they do, they are pretty quick to minimise the damage," regatta organiser Gareth Howard explained.

Rough and Ready have a one-point lead over Aucklander Stu Clarke, who is racing Blurr with Stu Malloy and Cam Horne in his crew. Another Auckland skipper, Sam Edwards, who is racing Brzo with Greg Wagstaff and Derek Scott is a further five points back in third place.

Howard, who is one of the crew with Mike Fenwick in the Gavin Earle-skippered Napier Sailing Club boat, described yesterday's conditions as changeable.

"The wind was there later in the day so the decision was made to have five races. I'm picking there will be three [today] and four on Saturday."

Bloodline did the best of the host club crews with second, fourth, ninth, 10th and seventh placings and will start today's races in eighth place, 18 points behind Rough and Ready.

"We had good starts in the first couple of races when the breeze was light. They were a couple of good races. Tomorrow we will be working on getting our starts more consistent," said the relief teacher yesterday.

The next best of the Napier boats, Shock Treatment, which is skippered by David Plowman and crewed by his father Trevor Plowman and Vincent Bussiere, finished yesterday in 10th place, 20 points behind Bloodline. Plowman recorded eighth, ninth, 11th and two 12th placings.

The other host club boat, Magpie, which is skippered by Tony Clifford and has Duncan Gourley and Mark Sheldrake in the crew, didn't race yesterday as crew members had work commitments.

Nine boats come from Auckland, three from the host club, one from Whangarei and one from Wellington.