Easter in Canberra

April 23, 2013 Leave a comment

026On one of my trips down south, I dropped by and saw Matt Owen, the CEO of Canberra Yacht Club. After running through a range of DeckHardware products, some of which Matt took on the day, we got talking about race management. He noted that the upcoming Asia Pacific Access and Skud18 Championships were to be held at the club over Easter. Would I be interested in being the Principal race Officer? Having been involved in the 2012 Access World Championships at my home club Middle Harbour Yacht Club, I had little hesitation in agreeing as they were a great bunch of people to be involved with. Robyn and I drove down for a meeting with Terry Peek the Sunday before Easter to see how the organising was going, 8 hours in the car for 1.5 hours talking, at least it was a nice day.

I drove down again the following Thursday for the regatta, this time in the DeckHardware van with a few ‘bits and pieces’. The day was spent making sure the competitors and those helping out were ready to roll. Friday was a practice race, it was much needed for the team on the water, as much as I had raced on Lake Burley Griffin, I’d never run anything. It was good to get my eye in.

Racing was competed in the Skud18s, Access, Access303s single and double handed and the Libertys. Across the five divisions, they had multiple races each day. Luckily we had good sailing and were able to get in some good racing across the Easter weekend as you can see by the attached photos. The winning Skud18 from London 2012 was sailed by 420 sailor Rob Crawford and his father Peter upfront after the sudden withdrawal of Paralympic Gold Medalist Dan Fitzgibbon due to illness, Peter enjoyed his time crewing for his son and having some time on the water. Other London2012 sailors included Liesl Tesch, Dan’s London2012 crew and Stephen Churm from the Aussie Sonar team.

With competitors from nearly all Australian states, New Zealand and Japan it was a good mix and from what I saw, some great racing for the spectators on the shoreline. Next years event is proposed to be held down in Adelaide, either on the river or even perhaps down at Goolwa on the Murray River.

Results available here: http://www.canberrayachtclub.com.au/results/2012-2013/Access_Class_2013_CHampionships.pdf

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2012 World Access Dinghy Championships

April 7, 2012 Leave a comment

ImageThis week sees me back at my home club Middle Harbour Yacht Club. After 3 weeks away interstate in 5 it’s nice to come back to familiar surroundings.

Wth over 85 boats and over 100 competitors across multiple divisions, it has been quite an effort by our club Commodore Julie Hodder and a huge team of volunteers in organising this event.

As the club PRO, I’m stepping aside as Mark Pryke has been brought in to oversee the on water running of the event. It will be interesting working alongside him, as though we have known each other for many decades, this will be the first time I’ve been on the water with him, as against being on the water competing against him. Mark is known these days as an International Race Official, however, I spent many years sailing against him in the Adams10s.

The fleet this week includes the Access, Libertys and the Paralympic sailing class, the Skud18 as shown in the photo. In this case it’s Dan and Liesels boat which we sponsor through our support of the Australian Sailing Team. It’ll also be a good opportunity to get some on water footage too.

Hopefully I may get the chance to jump aboard on of the competing boats, just to get a feel of what they are like. I’ve never sailed a dinghy that can’t capsize, should be interesting.

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