Tornado World Championship warm-up event

by Janet Watkins, Takapuna BC on 1 Feb 2008
The Tornado New Zealand Nationals are being sailed this weekend at Takapuna. Three weeks from now racing will start off Takapuna Beach for the 2008 Tornado World Championship. 44 entries are confirmed with representatives from 19 different countries coming to North Shore City for this World Championships which doubles as the final Olympic qualifier.

With the Olympic Games now just seven months away this 44 boat Tornado fleet is world class and includes a multitude of Olympic and World Champions and medallists. An important lead-up regatta for those on the road to Qingdao, China the Tornado World Championships has attracted an unprecedented fleet of Olympic multi-hull sailors to New Zealand.

Britain's Olympic representatives, Leigh McMillan and Will Howden head-up a GBR team of Andrew Walsh and Ed Barney, Rob Wilson and Mark Bulkeley, Tom Phipps and Marcus Lynch, and Stephen Medwell and Stuart Offer.

Racing will start on Monday 25 February with a practice race scheduled for Sunday 24th. The regatta concludes with the crowning of the new Tornado World Champions on Saturday 1 March.

The Tornado catamaran has been an Olympic class since its debut in 1976 and is touted as the fastest production catamaran in the world. Fast and spectacular the Tornado World Championship regatta off Takapuna Beach promises to be an exciting spectacle.

The current entry list for the 2008 Tornado World Championships has been published, currently there are 46 crews entered and organisers expect this to increase as the start date of the event 22 February 2008, approaches.

Bow numbers will be allocated in order of ISAF World Rankings as of 20 January 2008.

The Tornado Nationals are being sailed this weekend, at Takapuna, an entry of 12-15 crews are expected.

	TAKAPUNA BOATING CLUB
	2008 WORLD TORNADO CHAMPIONSHIPS
	RACE ENTRY DETAILS				As at 29 Jan 2008
	Nation	Sail #	Skipper	ISAF Rank	Crew
1	AUS	8	Darren Bundock	1	Glenn Ashby
2	ESP	1	Fernando Echavarri	2	Anton Paz
3	GER	7	Johannes Polgar	4	Florian Spalteholy
4	GBR	436	Leigh McMillan	6	Will Howden
5	CAN	7	Oskar Johansson	7	Kevin Stittle
6	NED		Mitch Booth	8	Pim Nieuwenhuis
7	RUS		Kirilyuk Andrey	9	Ushkov Valeriy
8	AUT	3	Roman Hagan	10	Hans Peter Steinacher
9	FRA	5	Billy Besson	13	Arnaud Jarlegan
10	ESP	23	Tony Rivas	14	Fabian Escude
11	USA	808	John Lovell	16	Charlie Ogletree
12	GBR	447	Andrew Walsh	17	Edward Barney
13	ITA	257	Francesco Marcolini	18	Edoardo Bianchi
14	GBR	7	Rob Wilson	19	Mark Bulkeley
15	GER	1	Roland Gaebler	20	Gunnar Struckmann
16	PUR	1	Enrique Figueroa	21	Jorge Hernandez
17	AUT	8	Thomas Zajac	22	Thomas Czajka
18	BEL	7	Carolijn Brouyer	23	Sebastien Godefroid
19	DEN	1	Allan Norregaard	27	Michael Risoer
20	GBR	5	Chris Rashley	28	(Withdrawn)
21	RUS		Dzhienbaev Sergey	29	Semenov Maxim
22	UKR	11	Pavlo Kalynchev	30	Andriy Shanfranyuk
23	ARG	1	Santiago Lange	32	Carlos Espinola
24	NZL	70	David Mead	33	Chris Burgess
25	NZL	121	Aaron McIntosh	37	Mark Kennedy
26	NZL		Bruce Kendall	40	Blair Tuke
27	BRA	7	Bruno Di Bernardi	43	Mario Tinoco
28	GBR	3	Tom Phipps	45	Marcus Lynch
29	POL	1	Piotr Kowalewski	50	Maciey Klosowicz
30	NZL	74	David Shaw	58	Susan Shaw
31	CHN	58	You Jia Lao	61	Xiu Ke Chen
32	GER	17	Eckart Kaphengst	72	Rasmus Topsch
33	NZL	84	Rex Sellers	77	Nigel Williams
34	GBR	406	Stephen Medwell		Stuart Offer
35	AUS	305	Alan Gamble		Kim Nicholas
36	AUS	O13	Rohan Langworthy		Jack Punch Benson
37	AUS	322	Brett Burvill		Ryan Duffield
38	NZL	77	Paul Francis		Aaron Duncan
39	AUS	300	Damien Ford		Mark Edmonds
40	AUS	285	Paul Peterson		Matt Thackray
41	NZL	86	William Caunce		Liam Blair-Caunce
42	NZL	1	Brett Sellers		Peter Fyfe
43	AUS	287	Paul Raymond		Nicholas Raymond
44	GER		Justus Wolf
45	CHN	1	Bo Lin		Shanfeng Yang
46	CHN	2	An Jie Lu		Xue Hai Zhuang