Jason Muir wins the 2009 Audi Etchells World championship

by Skip Lissiman on 13 Mar 2009
Friday the 13th was a lucky day for Jason Muir and his crew of Matthew Chew, Paul Wyatt and Bucky Smith from Brisbane when they won the 2009 Audi Etchells world championship with a day to spare with a very consistent day of racing with a 9th and 8th placing to now have a total of 43 points, leading Damien King from Melbourne on 63 points.

With Muir’s discard placing a 10th placing means that they can’t be beaten and don’t have to sail the last day..

The series leader going into today, John Bertrand, had a 12th and 32nd placing today to put him in 3rd placing overall on 65 points, 2 points adrift of King.

We had good speed on Bandwagon today but with the S – SE breezes of between 6 – 9 knots struggled to find a clear lane of breeze and finished 28th in both races to move up two places to 24th overall.

Every place is a real fight to gain with so much depth of experience and talent in the fleet of 86 boats.

The week of racing has been tough mentally with very challenging light wind conditions that takes the full complement of sensors and full concentration over the period on the water – which with two races sailed today was over 7 hours on the water.

Tessa Parkinson and Keith Swinton did another great job today to firstly try and find each and every little puff and wind shift, then to maximise on them to gain a meter or two to eventually pass a boat or two.

Andy Fethers tuned the boat to perfection as the breeze increased and eased throughout the day.

There are about 20 different items across the boat that can be adjusted to maximise the tune of the boat for the conditions and if any one of them is out of adjustment by as little as a few millimetres then the boat will not go quite as fast as it potentially can go for the (wind and sea) conditions at the time.

A wind increase or decrease of as little as 1-2 knots, or the waves increasing (or decreasing) in height by 5cms is all it takes for a retrim to take place with any one or more of the 20+ variables.

With the forecast for a frontal system due about start time tomorrow – meaning plenty of wind – hopefully we can get the old girl going and move up a few more places in the final race of the regatta.

I must say the on water race management team lead by Kevin and Ross Wilson have done a superb job running the races, which each day has been challenging.

Will see how we end up and how the final placings pan out.

Safe sailing - Skip Lissiman

The team of BANDWAGON would like to thank our sponsors SLAM sports wear, Club Marine boat insurance, Ronstan for their support.