The Results of the first two races of the 2012 John Cootes Furniture Australian A Class Championships have been posted on the Wangi RSL Amateur Sailing Club. (The invitation race can be found here).
These results will be updated throughout the series.
Until late this past week, it was touch and go with regards to whether or not the shipping container transporting six DNA A Class Catamarans from the Netherlands, would arrive in sufficient time for the 2012 John Cootes Furniture Australian A Class Championships which get underway January 3 at the Wangi Amateur Sailing Club.
Fortunately, the container has safely arrived at Lake Macquarie. Glenn Ashby, James Spithill, John Kosteki, Dirk de Ridder, Tom Slingsby and Nathan Outteridge are now busy preparing their boats for the event. They should have the next four days to familiarise themselves with the attributes of their boats.
These Championships will be a unique event on the Australian Sailing Calendar, bringing together three current World Champions: Tom Slingsby (Lasers), Nathan Outteridge (49ners), and Steve Brewin, sailing on these high performance, efficient 18 foot catamarans.
Added to the mix are the four sailors from Oracle America’s Cup Syndicate (Spithill, Kosteki, de Riddder, Darren Bundock), Ashby from Team New Zealand, as well as the three former Olympic medallists Andrew Landenberger, Chris Cairns and Scott Anderson.
The form guide suggests that this will be a very tightly fought series, and the top ten places should be quite a battle. Ashby, with seven A Class World Championships to his resume, remains the favourite for the event.
Bob Bier, the current European champion, will be competing on a chartered DNA, adding his name to the Northern Hemisphere contingent.
Simon McKeon, who is the current Australian of the Year, will be taking a break from his official duties to compete.
The practice race will be held late in the afternoon on January 2, with the nine race series commencing the following day under the watchful eye of PRO Tony Outteridge.
Twelve A’s took part in Sail Sydney last weekend, joining many boats of other classes, sailing a course from Georges River Sailing Club on the south western corner of Botany Bay. This was the final regatta leading up to the Nationals for the NSW fleet, joined by Jack Benson from the NT, here to warm up for the Nationals.
After a short delay waiting for wind, racing started in a patchy south easterly that filled in as the afternoon progressed. Steve Brewin showed his form by winning three of the four races, although he did let Jack Benson and Grant Pellew through in the second.
Kudos to the race committee for recognizing the speed of the A Class in the first race and extending our course by a lap to align the elapsed time more closely with the other fleets.
On Sunday the racing was again postponed due to lack of wind for the Juniors who were using the same course. By the time the A classes were starting the wind was 18knts from the North East and continued to build past 22knts.
Steve Brewin showed how it was done in the bumpy conditions and winning all three races with Darren Bundock (racing only on Sunday) close behind.
Final standings gave the win to Steve Brewin, followed by Jack Benson and Andrew Williams.
| 1 | 91 | AUS 4 | Brewin Sails | Steven Brewin |  |
1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 7 | |||
| 2 | 93 | AUS 13 | P.D.Q | Jack Benson |  |
2 | 4 | 1 | 3 | DNC | 3 | 4 | 29 | 17 | |||
| 3 | 95 | AUS 321 | Wet Willy | Andrew Williams | |
DNC | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 30 | 18 | |||
| 4 | 99 | AUS 969 | Harken Australia | Grant Pellew | |
3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 26 | 21 | |||
| 5 | 94 | AUS 22 | Spunspar | Mark Johnston | |
4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | DNC | 6 | 6 | 43 | 31 | |||
| 6 | 98 | AUS 941 | Firefly Dance Club | Julian Jenkins | |
5 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 44 | 37 | |||
| 7 | 238 | TBA | TBA | Daren Bundock | |
DNC | DNC | DNC | DNC | 1 | 2 | 2 | 53 | 41 | |||
| 8 | 97 | AUS 914 | Pistool | Bradley Wicht | |
6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | DNC | DNC | DNC | 62 | 50 | |||
| 9 | 237 | AUS 945 | TBA | Tom Spithill | |
DNC | DNC | DNC | DNC | 5 | 8 | 8 | 69 | 57 | |||
| 10 | 96 | AUS 74 | Fox | Dario Valenza | |
7 | 8 | 8 | DNF | DNC | DNC | DNC | 71 | 59 | |||
| 11 | 92 | AUS 007 | Simon Nelson | |
DNC | DNC | DNC | DNC | DNF | DNC | DNC | 84 | 72 |
As at 21/12/2011, the following have entered:
AUS 1 Glenn Ashby
AUS4 Steve Brewin
AUS 5 Horst Kopp
AUS7 Hamish Sinclair
AUS 8 Graeme Harbour
AUS 9 John Dowling
AUS10 Brad Collett
AUS13 Jack Benson
AUS 25 Stephen Brayshaw
AUS unknown Graeme Parker
AUS 48 Ian Johnson
AUS 88 Darren Bundock
AUS 308 Andrew Landenberger
AUS 668 Brian Cole
AUS739 William Pringle
AUS747 A Duff
AUS 765 Mark Griffits
AUS 802 Konrad Schultz
AUS827 Neil Caldwell
AUS 844 Richie Howells
AUS880 Ian Michie
AUS 883 Kasey Warr
AUS 898 Chris Cairns
AUS902 Scott Anderson
AUS 911 Michael Kopp
AUS 912 Alex Duff
AUS914 Brad Wicht
AUS 932 Pat Drover
AUS933 Chris Parker
AUS 939 Miller Campbell
AUS 944 Steve Wright
AUS 947 Lucas McDonald
AUS 948 Russ McDonald
AUS 949 David Brewer
AUS 950 Robert Griffits
AUS 956 Grant Pellew
AUS 957 David Loutit
AUS 958 Simon McKeon
AUS960 Chris Batenberg
AUS 962 Wayne Mercer
AUS 966 Andrew Williams
USA TBA John Kosteki
AUS TBA Nathan Outteridge
AUS TBA James Spithill
AUS TBA Tom Slingsby
USA TBA Dirk de Ridder
GER 14 Bob Baier.
NED 888 Jeroen Van Leeuwen
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One month out from the 2012 Australian Titles, we already have 44 firm entries for the regatta. Should be another great turn out both in quality and quantity.
The forth regatta in our Travellers series saw many competitors cross into cockroach country to compete on the Clarence river at Grafton. The schedule had a twilight ‘practice’ race on Friday night with serious racing on Saturday and Sunday.
Unfortunately a significant weather system influenced the normally reliable North Easters that prevail this time of year. Whilst most of the rain fell to the west and south, the river was up slightly and combined with a big tide (over 2m at the coast) there was plenty of tide to push heading up the river.
On Friday evening Landy led Lou, Julian and myself around the river in a reasonable 7-9Knts and light rainfall – a good tune up. Up to the pub for country steak where choice was rare or dead – Julian still working out how you describe a ‘blue’ steak in Grafton!
Saturday’s forecast was for some breeze out of north west or north east. We got on the water around 1.00pm and started in a weak southerly – where did that come from? A long course was set upwind against the tide for a challenging upwind but a quick slide downhill. We felt the wind was swinging to the north so re-set the coarse but to no avail. Only one race today but the location is great and the extended Landenberger family looked after us with a great BBQ and sweets for the night – thanks Martina, Chris, Andy, Don and Jan. Thanks also to Paul Dougherty for helping out as starter.
With all of us ready for some action on Sunday the sun was out and the conditions heating up quickly we all expected the NE to fill in nicely. Again we ended up with a light, hot westerly which is not easy to set a coarse for. We managed to complete three racers however and occasional bursts on the trap were followed by watching the locals sail around us in their own private breeze – I am sure I heard some locals request next Aussie titles to be sailed at Grafton!
As you can see by the results despite all this the cream risers to the top with Landy scoring a perfect series, Brad coming home second and Dave is proving to be a flyer in the light airs. Haven’t finalised the next regatta in FEB/MAR next year but hope to see you all at the nationals in Wangi and back on local waters in 2012.
| Clarence River Yacht Club A-Cat Regatta 26/27th NOV 2011 – 10 Entries | |||||||
| After 1 Drop | |||||||
| Race 1 | Race 2 | Race 3 | Race 4 | Total | Place | ||
| AUS 308 | Andrew Landenberger | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| AUS 10 | Brad Collett | 3 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 2 |
| AUS 857 | Dave Merrett | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 10 | 3 |
| AUS 30 | Frek Cahill | 8 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 11 | 4 |
| AUS919 | Lou Zylstra | 5 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 13 | 5 |
| AUS 754 | Bob Eggins | 7 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 14 | 6 |
| AUS952 | Andrew Chaney | 4 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 16 | 7 |
| AUS 941 | Julian Jenkins | 10 | 8 | 9 | 4 | 21 | 8 |
| AUS 9 | John Dowling | 6 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 23 | 9 |
| AUS 956 | Vic Collett | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 28 | 10 |
Best Regards Andrew Chaney
We are pleased to announce that we have been successful in obtaining a number of generous sponsors for the Australian Championships.
Our naming sponsor is John Cootes Furniture. John sails on Lake Macquarie. Whilst watching the Belmont Worlds in 2009, he decided he wanted to sail one, and bought one of the new boats at the end of the regatta. He liked sailing the boat so much, he bought another one, purchasing Landy’s DNA. John has a variable an interesting career. He started off as a Catholic priest, whilst concurrently 1st grade and International Rugby League, later becoming a TV sports presenter, later establishing a furniture retail business with stores in Sydney, and on the Central Coast. He is very generous in spirit, and with his time. When I asked him if he was interested in sponsoring the regatta, he asked “how much” I mentioned a figure. His reply “double it” On weekends when he not skimming across the water on his A , he is under it indulging in his other passion: scuba diving
Our other major sponsor which has just recently come on board if Zhik. Zhik is a well known maker of sailing apparel including wet weather gear, trapeze harnesses, lifejackets, shirts, tee shirts, and other clothing. I can personally vouch for the gear. I use their life jacket and trapeze harness. The gear is thoroughly designed , innovative ,and well manufactured. The life jacket is comfortable, compact, and unobtrusive. The Trapeze harness is a gem. It is comfortable, supportive, and most importantly has a quick release of the hook plate if you find oneself tangled with ropes under the boat.
Zhik were very keen to become a major sponsor. Our thanks to Pat Langley of Zhik, and for Grant Pellow for their organisation.
Once again our sailmakers , Glen Ashby, Steve Brewin, and Andrew Landenberger will be sponsoring our post race BBQ’s. Advanced Racing Catamarans, the Dutch maker of the DNA will also be sponsoring a BBQ.
Scott Anderson’s Fibrefoam will be donating a set of battens as a prize
Paragraph 4. Rules of the Notice of Race for the 2010 John Cootes Furnature Australian Championships for International A Class Catamarans has been amended to :
4.RULES
The Event will be governed by the Racing Rules Of Sailing 2009 -2012 (RRS), the Prescriptions of the YA and the Class and Champioship Rules of AIADCA and IACA ,except as any of these are altered by this Notice Of Race, or by the Sailing Instructions, YA Addendum A Special Regulations Part 2 will apply.
Darren Lowder Memorial Trophy:April 22, 2012 - April 22, 2012
Queens Birthday Weekend:June 9, 2012 - June 11, 2012
2012 European Championships:June 22, 2012 - June 29, 2012
Manta Regatta (NT Champs):June 30, 2012 - July 7, 20122012 World Championships:October 20, 2012 - October 26, 2012