Australian 18 Footers Sailing Season – A month to go

by Frank Quealey on 15 Sep 2017 With less than a month to go till the start of the Australian 18 Footers sailing season, the excitement is building for another big summer of racing.

The 2017/18 racing season will see changes to the racing formats, some new teams and sponsors and in March the Australian/New Zealand rivalry will be hot.

Racing kicks off on Sunday October 8 with the first race of the Spring Championship. A seven race series of three buoys racing. Then it is straight into the NSW Championship. This five race series will run from November through to January with three weeks off for Christmas.

The Australian Championship starts on January 21, 2018 and will see the fleet completing two races a day. Smeg bowman Mike McKensey is looking forward to the introduction of more racing. 'It is a great chance to get some more racing practice in before the JJ Giltinan starts in March,' he said.

The JJ Giltinan Championship runs from March 2 to 11 and will see a fleet of international teams try to steal the trophy from the Australians. The New Zealand team of Yamaha will be leading the charge with some unfinished business from the last two JJ Giltinan Championships. Some unfortunate circumstances has seen Dave McDiarmid's team finish second for the last two years.

This year's 18 Footers racing season will be filled with great action and plenty of spectacular capsizes.