2009 Audi World Etchells championship -

by Ian Grant / Sail-world on 5 Mar 2009
The Etchells Worlds start off Melbourne’s Brighton Beach on Monday. Australians Mark Bradford and Mike O’Brien have too much respect for the standard of the fleet to nominate where they will finish in a fleet that has attracted the best sailors in the World, including Australia’s Americas Cup winning skipper John Bertrand, Olympic Gold Medallist Ben Ainslie and six former Etchells champions.

A lot has changed since the 2002 series on New Zealand’s Gulf Harbour when Mark Bradford and Mike O’Brien expressed their skill to race consistently against a fleet of 97 rivals to eventually finish with a career best Silver Medal behind English helmsman Stuart Childerley.

Both are now a lot wiser and more experienced with Mark Bradford maturing from the knowledge of racing in the 2008 Americas Cup and steering the super fast Peter Harburg owned Black Jack to an impressive line honours trophy win at the 2008 Audi Hamilton Island Race Week.

Predictably Mark Bradford and Mike O’Brien have too much respect for the standard of the fleet to nominate where they will finish but they are aiming to be in the top 10 when the final is decided on Saturday March 14.

The intense nature of the nip-n-tuck duel for the prestigious 2009 Audi World title trophy has as expected attracted the best sailors in the World including Australia’s sole Americas Cup winning skipper John Bertrand English Olympic Gold Medallist Ben Ainslie and former World champion Cameron Miles.

John Bertrand will be very familiar with the racing conditions off Melbourne’s Brighton Beach and he has left nothing to chance with the challenge of winning his first World crown after out sailing a strong fleet to win the recent Australian championship.

He will have Ben Ainslie in charge of his race strategy while 2008 Star Class Olympian Andrew Palfrey will provide the required weight and grunt to be a front line contender.

But John Bertrand who finished with a personal best Bronze medal at the Tag Heuer World series on Brisbane’s Waterloo Bay in 1993 completely understands that while all crews are good mates on shore the friendships are left back in the bar when the sails are tensioned to win the war on the water.

The 2009 championship has attracted a fleet of 85 entries, 65 of these are Australian entries and going in this event will be previous world champions, including 2006 winner Judd Smith, who also has five runner-up finishes. John Savage who won in 1979 in Canada, Peter McNeill was the 2004 winner and John Savage won in 1988. Seven entrants are from Britain, including the 2001 and 2002 winner, Stuart Childerley.

Other entries include those from Bermuda, Italy, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA.

2009 Etchells World Entries

AUS 415 Noel Paterson
AUS 417 Allan Sandy
AUS 721 Graeme Aldersea
AUS 736 Shane Deussen
AUS 768 Hendrik Visser
AUS 831 Josh Chant
AUS 850 Philip Dyer
AUS 865 Bruce McBriar
AUS 870 Mark Bradford
AUS 874 Jason Muir
AUS 876 David Clark
AUS 882 Brendan Jukes
AUS 883 Gary Smith
AUS 891 Skip Lissiman
AUS 892 Jeff Rose
AUS 916 Alastair McMichael
AUS 917 Anthony Kongats
AUS 924 Damien King
AUS 936 John Dunn
AUS 940 Julian Plante
AUS 943 Burke Melia
AUS 947 Graeme Taylor
AUS 948 Graham Alexander
AUS 963 Grantham Kitto
AUS 994 Paul Minter
AUS 1024 Guyon Wilson
AUS 1049 Doug Williams
AUS 1052 John Sheehan
AUS 1084 Kane Sinclair
AUS 1102 Stephen O’Rourke
AUS 1117 Ian Anderson
AUS 1131 Brendan Garner
AUS 1134 Matthew Whitnall
AUS 1150 Bill Steele
AUS 1158 Peter La Fontaine
AUS 1160 Dirk Van Der Struyf
AUS 1192 Tom Woods
AUS 1219 Matthew McCann
AUS 1237 John Savage
AUS 1244 Jake Gunther
AUS 1250 Jervis Tilly
AUS 1253 Mark Doyle
AUS 1257 David Lawrance
AUS 1258 Jason Ward
AUS 1270 Chris Pratt
AUS 1273 Robert Weir
AUS 1275 Chris Williams
AUS 1276 Garrath James
AUS 1289 Peter Chappell
AUS 1291 Donald Wilson
AUS 1317 James Dagge
AUS 1318 Ian Johnson
AUS 1320 Rob Bird
AUS 1337 Rupert Henry
AUS 1338 Mark Bulka
AUS 1343 Nicholas Kingsmill
AUS 1345 Roger Hickman
AUS 1346 Peter McNeill
AUS 1347 Vaughan Prentice
AUS 1360 Jan Muysken
AUS 1361 David Rose
AUS 1366 Kirwan Robb
AUS 1374 Robert Brown
AUS 1377 Judd Smith
AUS 1383 John Bertrand
BER 383 Martin Vezina
BER 1249 Tim Patton
GBR 962 Rob Goddard
GBR 987 Stuart Childerley
GBR 992 Andrew Cooper
GBR 1009 Geof Gibbons
GBR 1325 Mike Till
GBR 1339 Laurence Mead
GBR 1354 David Franks
HKG 1269 Mark Thornburrow
IRL 1330 Dan O’Grady
ITA 1351 Marco Cimarosti
NZL 950 Alastair Gair
NZL 1058 Jon Andrews
NZL 1077 Charles St Clair Brown
NZL 1314 Lindsay Kennedy
USA 969 Chris Busch
USA 971 Kjeld Hestehave
USA 1094 Richard Hodgson
USA 1215 Noel Drennan