Audi Showdown Regatta in Tasmania - Young sailors show their skills

by Peter Campbell on 2 Nov 2013 On the opening day of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s prestigious Audi Showdown, talented young Tasmanian sailors demonstrated their skills on the Derwent yesterday when a fleet of near 150 boats contested.

With a 10 knot south-easterly breeze, conditions were ideal for the large fleet of mostly small off-the-beach boats, but with a westerly change with winds of 20-30 knots forecast for Sunday, race officers ran as many races as possible on day one.

In the high profile Laser Radial class, local sailor Anna Vaughan is a close second to Australian champion Conor Nicholas from Perth, with Queenslander Jacinta Ainsworth third overall after six races yesterday.

Tamar Yacht Club sailor Ryan Moreton leads the Laser 4.7 class from Tom Males from Lauderdale Yacht Club and Angus Calvert from the RYCT Dinghy Group.

The evergreen Sabot attracted a strong fleet with State champion Sam King winning three of the six races in the senior division.

Adding colour to the regatta was a small but growing fleet of high performance International 29ers, the smaller version of the Olympic 49er class sailed for former International Cadet crews and Laser sailors.

Among the adult sailors who did well were the crew of Andrew Hunn and Lloyd Clark’s Farr 40 Voodoo Chile, helmed by Clark for this regatta.

Voodoo Chile won four of the six races for the Farr 40s, with young Sam Boyes steering Wired to victory in two races.

The SB20 class saw a fleet of a dozen boats sail five races, with Nick Rogers in Karabos winning four and Steve Catchpool winning the other race with Hypertronics.

Matt Bugg, recently returned from his European campaign in the International 2.4 class had a cleansweep in the eight races sailed to complete the regatta for this class.

Australian representative in the Paper Tiger catamarans, Bruce Rose, is so far unbeaten in the class while in the NS14 classes, only two points separate Port Dalrymple Yacht Club’s Nicholas McElwee and Scott Wilkie from Midway Point Yacht Club.