Alice Springs sailor second in Etchells Worlds Practice race
by Tracey Johnstone on 8 Mar 2009
Audi Etchells World Championship red centre practice race runner-up Jeff Rose Tracey Johnstone
Beaten in the last leg of the Audi Etchells World Championship practice race by New Zealand’s Alastair Gair, Alice Springs’s Jeff Rose is still very pleased with his team’s performance.
Rose, originally hailing from Metung in Victoria, has only been back on the water racing his Etchells for the last two years after a break of more than 15 years from the class. Based in Alice Springs where he works on civil engineering projects, he has to travel to Etchells events around Australia to meet up with his Metung crew and long-time sailing friends, Craig Rainy and Craig McCallum, using the events for both training and racing practice.
A second in today’s practice race was a fantastic result for the Second Wind crew. Rose led the race through to the second run before Gair moved through to push out Rose from first place finishing about three boat lengths ahead at the windward finish.
'We are pretty happy with that. We just have to clean up a few things. We’re not quite as slippery around the marks as we should be.
'I love the Etchells as they have the best competition pretty much in the world in terms of the John Bertrands and Rob Browns sailing them. I like pitting my skills up against those guys. You might come 70th, you might come 40th and you might have a lucky day like we had today and come second,' Rose said.
His target for the Worlds is to finish in the top 40. Rose has certainly proven today he has the capability of achieving that and more. 'We are only two years back into the fleet. Our results to date have been pretty average.'
Competing in the three Pre-Worlds events has clearly made a difference to the team. 'Our result today was exceptional.'
The fleet of 81 Etchells took three starts to get off the line for the last chance to settle themselves and their boats before the start of Worlds racing tomorrow. As the breeze built and swung about one third of the fleet chose not to finish the race heading back to shore saving their gear and energy for race one in the World Championship.
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