Our big Aussie 29er Team off to historic 29er World Championship

by David Price on 5 Jul 2012 We have record numbers of our Australian 29er Class sailors joining the world wide pilgrimage to be a part of an historic 2012 29er Class World Championship at Travemunde, Germany later this month. This championship event is already the largest amalgamation of 29ers in history with four hundred and thirty international sailors entered from twenty three nations, and these numbers are expected to swell to thirty one nations by the start of the event on 22 July.

Twenty two of Australia’s highly ranked young skiff sailors aged from 14yrs to mid-20’s comprise the Australian 29er World Tour 2012 and are competing at a number of European events in the lead up to these World Championships. The team includes our 2012 Australian Youth Sailing Team crew Tom Siganto and Joel Turner who will be competing in Ireland at the ISAF Youth World Sailing Championship on Dublin Bay prior to travelling to Germany.

We have three youth teams from Western Australia already in Europe who have just finished competing in the world’s biggest combined class sailing regatta at Kiel, Germany before heading to Norway for some more training under the Junior Exchange Sailing Scheme program from Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club. These three teams will then meet up with four more of our Australian 29er youth teams travelling to Sopot, Poland in two weeks’ time for the European Championships with the 29er fleet numbers currently standing at one hundred teams.

Back at home in Australia the 29er teams are in full preparation mode at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron. The 2012 AUS Mid-Winter Youth Championships start today and will provide the perfect opportunity to fine tune their skills before the remainder of the team hop on the plane to Europe. This youth event has the 29er fleet contributing eighteen crews including two crews from New Zealand.

The mid-winter event has become an integral part of many of the high performance programs within the class. Early in the week, defending 2011 youth champions and NSWIS athletes Harry Price and Nathan Edwards were handy training partners for departing AUS Youth Sailing Team crew Tom and Joel at Southport Yacht Squadron before the NSWIS crew rejoined their YNSW Youth Sailing Team training camp at the RQYS. Olympian 49er sailor and NSWIS Coach Ben Austin has been working tenaciously toward a personal best performance for each of his seven 29er NSW youth crews prior to the start of this regatta.

The weather predictions look feisty over the next four days of competition and will provide an ideal preparation for the 29er tourers commencing their campaign towards the biggest 29er Worlds event on record.