2008 OziOpti Victorian Optimist Championships

by Event Media on 5 Mar 2008 Australian Team member and 2008 Optimist Worlds representative Lloyd Collings of Sorrento Sailing & Couta Boat Club almost made a clean sweep of the rescheduled Victorian Championships at Mornington Yacht Club on the weekend.

With 48 skippers participating in the Open and Green fleets, up again on 2007, Collings sailed a focused series in light conditions to drop his worst result of second in the seventh and final heat, for a series score of six.

Mitchell Kerr-Read of Chelsea Yacht Club took the gun in the last heat and finished third overall on 22 points from Tom Lidgett of Davey’s Bay Yacht Club second on 20 points. Top Girl went to Melissa Hitchen Haw finishing eigth overall and Luke Vaughan who finished sixth was awarded the sportsmanship trophy by the race officers.

In the novice Green Fleet with eight races sailed, first time regatta entrant Stacey Robinson of Sandringham Yacht Club won six of the races to claim the trophy from another SYC sailor Patrick Chipp in second , local skipper Merric Merino was third.

The Victorian International Optimist Dinghy Association (VIODA) was forced to reschedule the 2008 Championships from Mt.Martha Yacht Club the previous week due to 25 - 30 knot onshore breezes that made launching unsafe and, in their wisdom combined the Championships with the MYC Schnapper Point Regatta.

Apart from the increase in competitors, there was a greater number of clubs represented this year in line with the growing and spreading popularity of the Opti. Whilst MYC has grown to over 20 Opti’s, the club of notice was Davey’s Bay Yacht Club with ten entries and Westernport Yacht Club entering the Optimist Class after their successful junior development program in January as part of the Yachting Victoria ‘Little Tackers’ pilot.

VIODA, with the ongoing support of OziOpti, announced the establishment of ‘VOSS’, the Victorian Optimist Sailing Squad’ to offer specialised coaching to the top ten placegetters in the State Championships. VOSS will be additional to the quarterly Opti Clinics VIODA now runs and will be held over winter on Albert Park Lake and as part of the Opti Travellers Series in season 2008/09.

In another milestone for the Optimist Class in Australia, Sarah Philip of SSCBC (as per winner Lloyd Collings) took to the water for her first day in an Opti on the Sunday in AUS500, the 500th Optimist registered in Australia.

VIODA would like to thank Mornington YC on welcoming the Opti’s into the Schnapper Point Regatta and running a fantastic series on top of the other commitments they already had with special mentions to Peter De Lange, Stephen Bolton and Chris Schwartz and their teams of volunteers.

Some of the Victorian Opti sailors will now join up with other interstate skippers from NSW, WA, QLD, TAS and SA as members of the Australian Optimist Sailing Team to receive Yachting Australia supported coaching and international racing exposure in large fleets at the Adelaide International Regatta this weekend and then the remainder of the state championships, NZ and Singapore Nationals where OziOpti supplies charter boats.

Full results available at; http://www.optivic.yachting.org.au/site/yachting/optivic/downloads/2008%20Vic%20States%20Results.pdf

Further information on the International Optimist Dinghy is available at;
National Class Association www.aioda.com
International Class Association www.ioda.org
Event & Class supporter www.oziopti.com.au