Three winners on opening day of 2.4 metre Nationals
by Peter Campbell on 2 Apr 2010

Matthew Bugg returns to the Derwent Sailing Squadron following race one of the International 2.4 metre national championship in Hobart Andrea Francolini Photography
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Three different winners emerged from today’s opening races in the Australian championship for the International 2.4 metre class, sailed on Hobart’s River Derwent.
The 2.4 metre class, a single-handed displacement yacht designed using the same metre rule as the 12-metre class yachts used in past America’s Cups, is one of three sailing disciplines for the 2012 London Paralympic Games sailing.
The Australian championship is an open event, although a number of disabled sailors, including Tasmanian Matthew Bugg, are competing as a lead-up to the 2012 London Paralympics.
Defending national champion Peter Russell, from Canberra’s YMCA Sailing Club, Sydney and Athens Paralympic sailor Peter Thompson, also from Canberra, and class newcomer Lisa Blackwood from the host club, the Derwent Sailing Squadron, each won a race in light and variable winds.
However, the overall leader after today’s three heats is another Canberra sailor, Michael Leydon, who sailed consistently with Octopod II, for three second places to be on 6 points. In second place on 8 points is Russell, sailing Jeelka, third is Peter Thompson, sailing Morna, on eight points.
Lisa Blackwood’s win was most impressive, as the Australian radio controlled yacht champion has been sailing a 2.4 metre class yacht for only six months. Sailing Happy Days, she is fourth overall on 11 points.
Paraplegic sailor Matthew Bugg is fifth overall on 16 points in Supermodel. The Tasmanian, who is in the Paralympic squad heading overseas this year, finished fourth and third in the first two races, but slipped to seventh in the third race after a collision with his father Ron, sailing Jitterbug.
'We just didn’t see each other and I was in the wrong,' admitted Ron, who is 11th overall.
Wellknown Hobart yachtsman Ian Ross sailed today despite the death of his mother last night, and is in seventh place overall, sailing Dame Pattie.
'I believe Ian decided to sail as a tribute to his mother who had given him so much support in his sailing career,' commented Ron Bugg, the Vice-Commodore of the Derwent Sailing Squadron. 'He said she would have wanted him to sail today.'
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