News

Sonar sailors David Barnes, Rick Dodson, Andrew May and John Weston are in Kinsale, Ireland, for the 2013 IFDS Combined World Championships to be sailed later this month. At a well attended send off function with supporters and friends on July 31st, the team confirmed their intentions to aim for the podium in Kinsale, kicking off their campaign for selection to the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie are one step closer to claiming their first world title in the Olympic 470 class with just one day and one race remaining at the 2013 470 World Championships now coming to its conclusion in La Rochelle, France. Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox have scraped into the Men’s top eight and will be back on the race course tomorrow too.

This week the seven sailors who make up the NZL Sailing Team with ETNZ have arrived in San Francisco to prepare for the 2013 Red Bull Youth America’s Cup.

The tables have turned after day four at the 2013 470 World Championships on now in La Rochelle, France with NZL Sailing Team’s Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie regaining the lead in the Women’s fleet, while Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox didn’t fair so well and have dropped to 11th in the Men’s Championship. All fleets sailed three races in 10-15 knot winds in La Rochelle today.

Nacra17 multihull campaigners Jason Saunders and Gemma Jones report in on the recent Nacra17 World Championships, where they placed 9th and what’s on next… We are back in New Zealand again and recovering from a hard Europe trip and a bit of jet-lag! It’s been a successful trip and we are both very happy with how things panned out.

I have spent the past two weeks in Rio training here for the first time in the Laser. It is a venue that I will become as familiar with as possible over the next few years in the build-up to the 2016 Olympics.

Today’s conditions were a lot lighter than yesterday but impressively the race committee managed to put away 10 flights leaving 4 races to be completed in the round robin tomorrow. The day was packed with some fantastic racing and we even saw a match where one team was forced to tack going down wind with a spinnaker up which made for interesting discussions in the debrief.

Finals rounds got underway today at the 2013 470 World Championships with the La Rochelle venue testing sailors with more challenging conditions on day three of the six day long regatta. Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox (pictured) are now in 2nd place in the Men’s fleet; Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie are lying 6th in Women’s. Racing was in 8-14 knots of unstable breeze with strong tidal currents and a choppy sea.

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the 1988 Bi-Centenary Around Australia Race (08/08/1988), Ocean Events is pleased to announce that the inaugural ‘Ocean Race Around Australia’ will go ahead in 2014. Ocean Events invites mono and multihull boats from Australia and around the world to join the inaugural ‘Ocean Race Around Australia’.