Fusion Racing is a match racing team of 4 girls, all local RPAYC sailors. These girls are doing amazing things for women in sailing, already this year we have seen them take out the boys at the Hardy Cup International Match Racing Regatta where they made history being the first all-female team as well as the first female helm to win the regatta.
Today they fly out for Sweden.
The Fusion Racing Team was selected as one of only 5 teams to compete in the GKSS Women’s Trophy in Sweden (July 4th to 8th). This regatta will be held alongside the Swedish Match Cup which is an official event of the World Match Racing Tour and this event is the first Championship level event of the season, GKSS* Match Cup Sweden. The women’s competition will be fought out in the high-performance M32 catamarans on the same race course as the open competition. This an amazing opportunity for the team as they will be sailing against the very best female sailors in the world and one team will claim the first female class trophy sailed in the M32.
Match Cup Sweden will turn the island of Marstrand into a match racing haven for it’s 25th anniversary year as the home of European match racing. The unpredictable conditions, a guaranteed jaw-dropping spectator turn out and racing just inches from the island’s crowd-lined rocks. Those who witnessed the 2015 Extreme Sailing Series on Sydney Harbour, in which Katie Spithill and Stacey Jackson, also RPAYC female sailors, competed aboard 33 South Racing, may know what the girls will be up for and why these events attract large crowds.
The M32 is quick to accelerate and fantastic to watch. The girls have had a training session with Down Under Racing, Skipper Harry Price, who will also be part of the action in Sweden commencing this week.
On top of Sweden Fusion Racing will then be heading over to the USA where they will compete in the prestigious Governor’s Cup hosted by the Balboa Yacht Club in Newport Beach(International Youth Match Racing Championship. 16 – 21 July 2018). This will be their second year in a row in the oldest youth match racing regatta in the world and as competitors must be no more than 22 years old, it will be their last run at gaining a podium finish. There again they will meet up with Mr. Price, as well as W.A.'s Will Boulden.
Fusion Racing then moves on to Chicago (Chicago Grand Slam hosted by Chicago Yacht Club; August 17-19) and Detroit (Detroit Cup hosted by the Bayview Yacht Club; August 23-26) where they will sail in two regattas, both part of the US Grand Slam Series with the aim of qualifying for the 2019 Congressional Cup at Long Beach California and increase their ranking to travel to World Match Racing Tour Qualifiers and the World Match Racing Tour.
Fusion Racing will be the first all female youth team to compete at these Grand Slam events.
Meet The Team
Current World Open Ranking: 40th
Current World Womens Ranking: 8th
Fusion Racing are four girls who grew up sailing at Avalon Sailing Club before transitioning to The Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club - RPAYC where they joined the RPAYC Youth Development Program that has already turned out so many champions.
Over the past year they have competed at national and international events, including the Youth Match Racing Worlds Balboa Yacht Cluband the WIM Series Busan Cup in South Korea:
Fusion racing are:
Skipper - Clare Costanzo - 21 years old
Clare is currently in her 4th year at Macquarie University studying a Bachelor of Town Planning
Clare Costanzo
Bow - Hannah Lanz - 20 years old
Hannah is currently in her 2nd year at Macquarie University studying a Bachelor of Business. (also a Bungan Beach SLSC Member)
Hannah Lanz
Main Trimmer - Jess Angus - 22 years old
Jess is currently in her 3rd year at ACU North Sydney Campus studying a Bachelor of Physiotherapy
Jess Angus
Trimmer - Ruby Scholten - 21 years old
Ruby is currently in her 2nd year at ACU North Sydney Campus studying a Bachelor of Nursing
Ruby Scholten
These four young women have been sailing together or in different teams winning and placing such events as the 2017 Marinassess Women's Match Racing Regatta, the 2015 Australian Women’s Match Racing Championships, the 2016 Australian Women's Match Racing Championships and so many others that if you go to the Pittwater Online News search function on the Front Page you will find more than a few reports, many of them Front Pages, where these young ladies have excelled in sailing for a few years now, although they've been sailing beside each other for a lot longer than that, first meeting at Avalon Sailing Club when they were 8 years old or younger.
A little over a year ago they came together to become Fusion Racing. Since then and long before then their passion for sailing has seen them crewing on the ocean going yachts as part of the Sydney to Brisbane race, MC38's, training on the zippy M32 or in whatever boat, in whatever class, in whatever conditions they need to to get better and better as a team.
If you live on Pittwater you would have seen them practise 7 days a week using the early morning breeze (6.15 am on the water) but wouldn't have seen them backing that up with gym work in the evenings. When you consider they're all studying and just about to embark on soem pretty exciting regattas where they will be representing not Australia but women in sailing, you may udnerstand that a bit of a fan base is building around these girls - although they themselves consider their soaking in what they can learn from RPA sailors Katie Spithill, Nina Curtis and Stacey Jackson the real fan club that's going on.
We caught up with skipper Clare Costanzo for a few words late this week:
Congratulations on winning the Hardy Cup this year, another regatta you have been working towards doing well in for a few years now. In fact you and the Fusion Racing Team take on any challenge on any boat going.
When did you move from the Avalon Sailing Club to the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club Clare?
When I started Year 7 at Mater Maria we were doing school teams racing out of the RPA – that’s when I got a taste of the yacht club and what they have to offer. Soon after I turned 15 I started sailing the 29er and joined the Youth development Program at RPA.
Sweden and being selected for the World Match Racing Tour GKKS Women’s Trophy, how did that happen?
This is part of the World Match Race Tour and this is the first female event they’re running in this class of boat. As soon as this was released we chased this up to get nominated as an entry.
As soon as you are finished there you will be returning to again for the Match Racing series for the Governor's Cup – at Balboa Yacht Club – will sailing in one class help with the other?
They’re very different boats. In one you have to make split second decisions, it’s a lot quicker boat so you have to make decisions a lot quicker. That actually helps us out with the Match Racing where you have a little bit more time to make the decisions. So in fact sailing in one class is actually enhancing our performance in the other. We’ll be so used to making decisions quickly under high pressure racing that when we get into those high pressure races in other boats it will feel a lot more normal.
What are you looking forward to in Balboa this year?
This competition is just amazing. Everyone going is the top of the tops from all around the world so there will be no easy races but I think that’s what we all like; the challenge.
And I will be the only female skipper again and I think, from looking at the crew lists, there are only one or two other females on the competing teams, so we’ll be making up the female numbers over there.
Where do you want your sailing to go – what’s the future the team is working towards over the next decade?
We’re hoping they’ll launch more events for women through the World Match Racing Tour. This is not a trail but more a ‘let’s get this going’ initiative. So we’d like to compete in those events should that eventuate.
Long term obviously we’ll keep sailing and see what opportunities open up.
Would you sail an all women crew in the America’s Cup?
(laughs) I think that would be a long way off. Obviously everything we’re doing now and working for and towards is to help those opportunities to arise, not just for us, but other women sailors too.
We’re just giving it a crack to see what doors we can open up. There’s not really a pathway there as such at present.
Katie Spithill was out with the Fusion racing Team for your last dawn session this week – is she one of your mentors?
Yes, Katie and a couple of the older girls around the club are our, I guess you’d say, sailing idols.
Who are the other two?
Nina (Curtis) and Stacey (Jackson). We are fan girls.
They are among the best women sailors in the world. How long have you all been sailing together?
We all started sailing when we were 8, out of Avalon. We’ve been doing the Match Racing together, as the same team, for just over a year.
How do you balance studying and all the commitments you make to sailing?
You don’t really have a lot of time for anything else, but that’s what you want to do.
Do you drink coffee to keep going?
No, not a coffee drinker – I like chocolate.
What’s the best thing about training on Pittwater – how does that help you compete in a variety of classes on a variety of courses in varied places?
For us it’s getting time out on the water in different conditions, as we’re all local to the club we can take advantage of that. if we only have two hours we can take a boat and go out and get two hours practice as a team.
Practice as a team is really what it comes down to; having trust in what in who you’re sailing with.