2002 Australian Yachting Awards

by TetraMedia Sail-World on 9 Jun 2002 The 2002 Australian Yachting Awards were announced at the Annual Awards Dinner in Sydney on Saturday night, celebrating the achievements of Australian sailors over the last year

The finalists in each of the categories included many World, National and state champions.

Sponsors of the Australian Yachting Federation and the Honourable Alan Cadman representing the Federal Minister for Sport announced the series of prestigious awards


2002 BEA Male Sailors of the Year: Darren Bundock and John Forbes from NSW

The Sydney Olympics silver medallists and World, European and Australian champions in the exciting Tornado catamaran class.

This champion Australian pairing is working hard towards the Athens Olympics. After receiving the award John Forbes who was also Australian Yachtsman of Year in 1992, joked that if their European rivals knew the full ‘Bundy and Gonzo program’ they’d give up their Olympic 2004 Gold Medal aspirations right now.

The other finalists were dual Contender world champion Arthur Brett from Victoria, A-Class catamaran World Champion Steve Brewin, world circumnavigator Tony Mowbray and dual Moth world champion Mark Thorpe.


2002 BEA Female Sailors of Year: Jenny Armstrong and Belinda Stowell from New South Wales

Gold medallists from Sydney 2000 in the 470 classes, Jenny and Belinda have continued their top class performances as they prepare for Athens 2004. They placed 2nd in both the 2001 470 Worlds, the European and the Australian titles.

They were BEA Female sailors of the year in 2001.

The World top ranked Yngling team of Melanie Dennison, Fiona Herbert, Kristen Kosmala and Caroline Aders and Lyndall Patterson, World Masters Laser silver medallist were the other finalists.

2002 P&O NEDLLOYD Disabled Sailor of the Year

The Disabled Sailor of the Year awardee was again chosen from an inspiring field.

This year’s winner was Wayne Thomson from NSW– Winner of the inaugural Autonomous World Blind Sailing Championship and 3rd in the Australian Masters Games in Access dinghy.

The other finalists were Michael McLean, who is campaigning his 2.4mr towards a place in the Australian Paralympic team for Athens 2004, Zoltan Pegan four times National champion in a variety of classes and veteran sailor Mark Thompson who transitioned to disabled sailing after a sailing accident six years ago.

2002 P&O NEDLLOYD Youth Sailor of the Year

Melissa Bryant and Martha Leonard from WA

Gold medal winners in the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships and first Australians to win back-to-back medals in the female double-handed dinghy topped a great year with this award.

Again, all the Youth Award finalists showed that Australia’s sailing strength is secure with a strong showing again in 2001-2002.

Olympic squad member, Laser sailor Ben Lamb and the World Youth 29’er champion Nathan Outteridge were finalists. So also were two pairings in Australia’s Olympic Squad 470 sailors Matthew Chew and Jamie Seymour and World junior Hobie 16 champions now sailing Tornado’s Robbie Lovig and Glenn Douglas.

2002 Services to Yachting

Recognition went to Queensland dingy stalwart Ralph Duffield who was an Awardee for Services to Yachting along with long time Victorian race managers the Wilson twins Kevin and Ross.

The 2002 Volvo Media Award was presented to Ian 'Stripey' Grant from Queensland.

Stripey who is the face and voice of sailing in Northern Australia voiced the feelings of everyone present when he emphasised the importance of the inspiring efforts of our sailors with disabilities and the need for continuing the already excellent encouragement given to Australia’s youth sailors.

The President of the Australian Yachting Federation, West Australia’s Don Nickels again put on record the considerable debt owed by the Australian sailing movement to the AYF sponsors especially Volvo Car Australia and BEA Systems.

For more information and detailed biographies on all the awardees

www.yachting.org.au