Outteridge launches new World title campaign at Audi King of Docklands
by Audi Victoria Week with added Sail-world content on 19 Jan 2011
Nathan Outteridge thumbs up Audi Victoria Week 2011
Action aplenty at Victoria Harbour, Docklands with the exciting Audi King of the Docklands ‘skins’ knockout sailing event this Thursday and Friday.
One of the top guns competing will be Nathan Outteridge, from Lake Macquarie New South Wales, one of the superstars of Australian sailing. 24 year old Nathan has twice won the 49er Olympic class skiff World Championship (2007 and 2009) and last week won the 2011 International Moth World Championship. Nathan is aiming to sail in yet another sailing class world championship or two, as part of his preparations for the 2012 London Olympics.
The Audi King of the Docklands SB3 dinghy event is in fact the launch of a two year SB3 dinghy campaign for this very talented sailor.
Nathan says, ‘Fleet racing in the SB3 is a good way to lift skill levels so we have a campaign planned. In a lot of ways the SB3 is a cross between yacht sailing in the big boats (the Farr 40s) and my Olympic class 49er.
‘Cross-training, as part of our Olympic preparation, really works for us. We’ve been finding that sailing other classes and with other experienced sailors lifts our performance back in our Olympic classes boats’ explained Nathan.
But in the high speed, high performance sailing world this cross training is not without risk, as Nathan further expanded. ‘Sailing foiling Moths is pretty wild. We had very strong conditions during last week’s Worlds and we had lots of high speed capsizes. I was lucky I escaped fairly injury free. Just had some bumps and bruises and scratches. The worst was on my forearm, I hit it on the foil on the fourth day in a crash at about 25 knots (50km) but I won the race.
‘I had a couple of deep cuts that I had to ice so they didn’t swell up. It was mainly the cuts and muscle bruising. I have just been resting and it’s fine now.
‘Across the year I spend about 300 days on the water. Recuperating from the Moths I did not train for three days. This is the most I have been off the water in a very long time.
‘Now I am back into sailing, here at Docklands, its a big event with a red hot field ’ he smiled.
[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]‘We've had a little experience already with these little dinghies. I was part of the Australian Sailing team that won the Audi King of the Docklands 2008 and in 2010 I won again sailing with Moth sailors Scott Babbage and John Harris.
‘Now Ian Brown (the 1976 470 Olympic Bronze medallist and long time Olympic coach) and I are preparing for the SB3 World titles in Torbay (England) this coming May and then we plan to sail the 2012 SB3 Worlds at Hamilton Island, Australia in 2012.
‘David Cheyne (IRL), the SB3 International Class President, is going to sail with us. David is flying in from Ireland to do Audi King of the Docklands and Audi Victoria Week.’
SB3 racing will be in Docklands’ Victoria Harbour and crews will be competing under a new knockout ‘skins’ format, on Thursday 20th and Friday 21st January 2011. 14 teams will race six action packed short course races on both afternoons and after each race, the slowest team will be eliminated from the competition. The last surviving teams will compete in a match race in Victoria Harbour on Friday evening for the Audi King of Docklands title.
An Audi King of the Docklands Celebrity Race Challenge will follow the Audi King of the Docklands from 6.30pm on Friday (21st January).
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