Another big win for Tasmanian sailor Matt Bugg

by Peter Campbell on 9 Mar 2015 Tasmanian sailor Matt Bugg has won his fourth consecutive Australian champion in the International 2.4 mR class as he prepares to head to Europe to consolidate his campaign for the 2016 Rio Paralympics. He was unbeaten in all but the first race last Friday and yesterday’s final race on Melbourne’s Port Phillip, placing third to another Tasmanian, Lisa Blackwood.

Bugg’s two major regattas in Europe will be at Hyeres in France and at Weymouth in England and looks near certain to again represent Australia at the Paralympics next year. He finished seventh overall at the London Games and since then has greatly improved his sailing techniques and tactics in the single-handed, 2.4m keelboat.
particularly when you are sailing against him,' his father Ron Bugg, commodore of the Derwent Sailing Squadron and president of Yachting Tasmania, told ‘The Mercury’ yesterday after the national championships ended at Royal Yacht Club of Victoria.

Matt Bugg, 34, outsailed the fleet of disabled and fully-abled sailors, winning six straight races in the eight race regatta. He was forced to retired from race one on Friday after his rig was damaged in a collision with fellow Tasmanian Lisa Blackwood.

However, the jury award him average points (1.3) as he was not at fault in the incident and this gave him a net total of 7.3 points, well clear of class veteran and many times national champion Peter Russell on 23 points, Sydney 2000 Paralympic bronze medallist Peter Thompson on 27.5 and Lisa Blackwood on 28 points.

Yesterday’s final race, sailed in light and flukey winds, was an all-Tasmanian affair: Blackwood winning from Stephen ‘Rowdy’ McCullum and Matt Bugg.

Bugg and fellow Tasmanians will be back at the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria in November to contest the International Federation of Disabled Sailors world championships, which includes the three Paralympic classes for Rio 2016, the 2.4mR, Sonar and Skud 18 classes.

In January 2016, the Royal Yacht of Tasmania will host the International 2.4mR open world championships on the River Derwent, expected to draw up to 60 boats from around the world.

In other sailing news, the Tasmanian owned ocean racing yacht Alive, owned by Phillip Turner and skippered by Duncan Hine has been named champion yacht of the Sail for Paradise regatta held off the Queensland Gold Coast over the weekend.

'It has been great practice for us leading up to the Brisbane to Gladstone Race over Easter, ' skipper Hine said. Alive only recently returned to her Queensland base after competing in the Rolex Sydney Hobart yacht race and following that, taking line honours in the King of the Derwent, Betsey Island Race and the iconic Bruny Island Race in southern Tasmania.