By Ian Grant.
Winning two Audi Australian IRC ocean racing championships in three years has not satisfied the competitive spirit of Mooloolaba Yacht Club skipper Rod Jones.
He has sold the high performance Archambault A40 racer /cruiser class sloop Alegria which Rod Jones and the Sunshine Coast based Oceanburo racing team skilfully piloted to win the 2009 National championship to prominent Keppel Bay Sailing Club skipper Tim McCall.
McCall has renamed the yacht Arcadia and has plans to contest the 308 n/ml Brisbane to Gladstone race over Easter while Rod Jones will pace the dock awaiting the delivery of his new Spanish built sloop which is expected to arrive in Mooloolaba on April 12.
Gladstone to Yeppoon Yacht Race 2010
Immigrant Mumm 30
1300 start off Patsy Lee Place with Immigrant on the buoy, in the tide and out of the blocks on the gun. Windward work down the harbour in 20-25 knots S/E and run out tide to Gatcombe Heads.
Quickly overtaken by No Problem (Shonning Catamaran)and Arcadia (Archibald 40) and heading towards and thru the east channel to E1. Arcadia was first around E1, then No Problem 2 minutes behind and Immigrant a further 3 minutes.
The other yachts were behind and out of sight. No Problem took off on tight reach with breeze at 120 degrees. We didn’t see them again.
2009 Aus Teams Racing
This year is set to become an important year in the world of University Sailing after Australian University Sport announces that sailing will be included in this year University Games in Perth. While the final details are yet to be established, sailing will be incorporated as an exhibition event this year and then from 2011, points contributing to the overall intervarsity championship.
Two new championships are set to make up the new sailing event at the university games. The first will be a teams racing three day regatta which will take place in Pacers. The second is expected to be a combination of fleet racing and match racing finals to establish an overall winner. The university games will be held in Perth during the end of September and has become famous for being the largest annual sporting event in Australia each year incorporating thousands of students.
AFox with Nik - Malaysia
17 February, 2010
ISAF Delighted With Perth 2011 Progress
By Ian Grant.
Kia Timm the exceptionally dedicated SB3 Dart class Queensland champion will face a supreme test of one-design sailing and tactical strategy when he contests the 2010 Audi Australian championship at Port Stephens from April 12-18.
The Yachting Australia qualified coach who has successfully introduced numerous Sunshine Coast primary and secondary school students to the sport through the Noosa Yacht and Rowing club sail training school will continue to focus his personal Australian championship training schedule with after school hour sessions off Mooloolaba.
He will pack his sea bag then drive the busy coast road to rig and launch his high performance Oceanburo sports boat for what he describes as routine training lasting several hours on the open ocean ‘torture track’ north of Pt Cartwright.
The inaugural Sail Paradise series off the Gold Coast could not have ended on a higher note last night with high praise for the event flowing freely, and the $5000 prize draw going to the most worthy of recipients.
The outright winner of IRC Division 1 was one of Australia’s offshore sailing legends, Bob ‘Sir Robbo’ Robinson, with his Brisbane-based Farr 40, Crackling Rosie. With four wins, a second and a third in the six races, Robinson claimed victory over Matt Percy’s Gold Coast entry, Alacrity, by four points. Peter Harburg’s magnificent canting-keel 66-footer, Black Jack was third. Black Jack also claimed the ‘Gun Boat’ trophy in emphatic fashion, her crew sailing a near-flawless series.
Robinson’s win had a tinge of déjà-vu to it. Some 20 years ago he won Southport Yacht Club’s inaugural XXXX series sailing another 40ft Farr design, Queensland Maid.
By Ian Grant.
Rod Sawyer’s Surefoot left another imprint in their claim to become the pacesetter in Whitsunday Sailing Club events on Pioneer Bay following their convincing win in the 2010 Airlie Sails trophy.
Surefoot now considered to be racing in the twilight of her career has the distinction of proving her boat speed against the best IOR class racing yachts at the highest level.
Since her launching almost three decades ago the 11.5 m sloop created from the drawing board of Swedish naval architect Peter Norlin to race in the 1983 Champagne Mumm Admirals Cup in England has some impressive results in her log book.
Mooloolaba Yacht Club blue water racing rivals Bob Robertson and Ken Down will ‘square off’ for a private tactical match race in the First Tax Duty Free Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race over Easter.
Both skippers are set to race in almost identical high performance Farr 40 class yachts where the separation in boat speed and success is determined by the combined human element energised skills of skipper and crew.
Souter and team place 4th at Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta
Aussie helmswoman Nicky Souter along with her trimmer Stacey Jackson, and bow Rayshele Martin, secured 4th place in the Women’s Match Race (WMR) discipline at the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta against an elite field of contenders.
Included in the solid field were current World Number One Claire Leroy, Olympic Gold Medallist Anna Tunnicliffe and former Women’s Match Racing World Champion Sally Barkow, not to mention the Australian Sailing Development Squad (ASDS) Teams lead by Nicky Souter and Lucinda Whitty. With 24 teams competing at the event and only eight boats, the field was broken down into three pools of eight teams in order to complete the heavy race schedule. With each pool seeded based on previous results, the competition in each group was red-hot.
By Ian Grant.
The tropical sailing paradise of the Whitsunday Islands supported by the friendly fellowship of the Whitsunday Sailing Club has continued to become a destination of choice for major dinghy and yacht racing championships.
Later this year the Whitsunday Sailing Club will host the Australian Tasar dinghy championship followed by the popular Meridien Marinas Airlie Beach Race Week and the Australian Corsair national series.