Australian Yachting Championship preview

The Australian Yachting Championship fleet preparing for their national series at the record-entry Audi Hamilton Island Race Week is diverse across all four divisions in make and model, and united by the same desire. 

From the two 100-footers to the tiny by comparison 21-footer, major trophies are up for grabs and at the completion of the week-long series four new Australian champions will be honoured by their peers.
In the Rating Series category the two supermaxis Scallywag and Wild Oats XI are the biggest at 100 feet. There has been a question mark over whether Seng Huang Lee’s recently purchased Scallywag would make the regatta, having blown up a hydraulic ram during the Sydney Gold Coast race, but the latest update is Wild Oats will have a sparring partner after all.

Another Rating Series entry, Geoff Boettcher’s South Australian TP52 Secret Men’s Business is another on a tight deadline to be ready for the first day of racing, Sunday August 21, 2016, after a major bow failure 25 minutes into the same race that unraveled Scallywag.

Secret Men’s Business’ bowsprit is under repair in Sydney and due at Hamilton Island with two days to spare. Boettcher is confident they will be on the start line and says he is looking forward to duelling with Karl Kwok’s TP52, the two-time reigning Australian Champion Beau Geste, and Matt Allen’s TP52 Ichi Ban.

Rating Series entries will complete a series of windward/leeward short courses and passage races around the spectacular Great Barrier Reef marine park.

Less drama has occurred in the other three championship divisions. The Passage Rating fleet features Race Week regulars Espresso Forte (Laurence Freedman) and Eagle Rock (Ross Wilson) and is dominated by Beneteaus of various lengths. In among the starters is a well-known name in sailing, Ray Roberts and his Sydney 38, Team Hollywood.

The majority of the Racer/Cruiser category, another championship division, sit around the 32-foot mark - Melges 32s and Sydney 32s then up to the long-campaigned Murray 60 (Charles Curran) called Sydney, and down to the smallest across the record Audi Hamilton Island Race Week fleet, Justin Hickey’s Victorian Mini Transat at only 6.5m.

This is the over-sized sports boat category and will be hotly contested at the largest offshore regatta in the Southern Hemisphere.

Yachting Australia added a new Multihull Racing category to the Australian Yachting Championship in 2016 and it has generated interest locally and abroad.

Tony Longhurst’s Extreme 40, The Boat Works, can reach speeds of 30 knots on flat water. A highly-anticipated matchup is looming between them and another foiling catamaran, the GC32 catamaran Frank Racing (formerly Vodafone32), owned by Auckland-based Simon Hull. He claims his top speed is closer to 36 knots, if there is enough wind blowing from the right direction.

Both could come a cropper if the swell kicks up.

Multihulls have been the largest growth area for Audi Hamilton Island Race Week and the newest championship division has enticed other super quick catamarans and trimarans to the annual Whitsunday Islands play dates of August 20-27.

Looking into his crystal ball, regatta director Denis Thompson believes the weather includes good breezes, for the first part of the week at least.

“The multihull fleet looks very competitive and everybody is looking to Frank Racing to see if it will foil,” Thompson added, also commenting, “the Extreme 40 looked quick at Airlie”.

Starts have been split this year between Dent Passage and the eastern start line, to reduce congestion in the narrow tidal passage between Hamilton and Dent islands, and Thompson says 250 plus boats combined finishing in Dent Passage on some days will be a spectacular sight for those onshore.

Hamilton Island CEO Glenn Bourke and staff are eagerly awaiting one of their calendar highlights. “Audi Race Week is keenly anticipated by our staff and they are looking forward to welcoming record numbers of guests,” Bourke said.

Entries for the Australian Yachting Championship may still be accepted. Download the Notice of Race and enter here.

All information relating to AHIRW is on the regatta website

Media images can be downloaded at http://pressgallery.hamiltonisland.com.au

Twitter: #AHIRW #HamiltonIsland ‎@AusYachtChamps
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Further information:
Lisa Ratcliff                                                                     
Australian Yachting Championship media                
e. lisa@occ.net.au m. 0418 428 511                          

Jane Gordon
Australian Sailing Head of Marketing & Comms
e. jane.gordon@yachting.org.au m. 0438 605 131

Denny-Lyn Dixon
Hamilton Island General Manager Marketing
e. ddixon@hamiltonisland.com.au m. 0407 160 771