News

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’.

Infinity Racing are currently in Sweden, racing in the Lysekil Women’s Match, the final regatta of the Women’s International Match Racing Series. After a very impressive weigh in we had a day on the water to familiarise ourselves with the boats and our team.

This drill can be set up for a group or for sailors by themselves. For this drill there are 4 marks and 4 boats. Have a rolling countdown, every minute there is a start. Boats must start as close to the mark, as though the mark was the Committee Boat and they wanted to win the right hand side of the start.

This drill splits the fleet in 2, with half starting on the “front row” and half in the “second row”. The drill highlights the importance of getting a good start on the line rather than behind the fleet, effectively on a different lower start line.

Day two of the 2013 470 World Championships has drawn to a close with the qualifying rounds complete and both NZL Sailing Team crews are well placed as they carry forward their ranking to the finals rounds which kick off in La Rochelle, France tomorrow.