Audi Showdown regatta in Tasmania - Champion sailors line up

by Peter Campbell on 1 Nov 2013 Tasmania’s champion one-design sailors in dinghy, catamaran, sports boat and keelboat classes will show their skills this weekend when they compete in the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s annual Audi Showdown.

The major regatta in Tasmania for international one-design classes, the Audi Showdown has also attracted near 150 entries from around the State, but also from Western Australia and Queensland.

Among the entries are several young contenders for the Rio de Janiero Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016.

Racing back on Hobart’s River Derwent for the first time this summer will be Matt Bugg, the London Paralympian in the International 2.4m class. Earlier this year, Bugg finished a close fourth in the International Federation of Disabled Sailors world championship at Kinsale in Ireland, his best result at this event.

Also back in training on the Derwent in the International 470 class is Lucy Shephard and her Victorian crew, Aurora Paterson. In the lead-up to the Audi Showdown, the young women have had their first week of coaching from Richard Scarr, getting back into sailing at home after their inaugural European campaign.

Coming down from Queensland are teenage sisters Jacinta and Elyse Ainsworth from the Noosa Sailing Club on the Sunshine Coast. Both have impressive records in the Laser 4.7 class.

Connor Nicholas, representing the South of Perth Yacht Club, is also expected to be a strong contender in the Laser 4.7 class, having finished first in this class at the Australian youth championships sailed in Hobart last January.

The visitors will face strong competition from a very active local fleet of Lasers sailors, including world championship race winner Anna Vaughan, Emma Barton, Joshua Ragg from the RYCT and Chloe Fisher from the Tamar Yacht Club.

Jock Calvert, who contested the sailboard class at the ISAF world youth championships in Cyprus this year, will be sailing in the Laser class at the Audi Showdown.

In addition to the Lasers, the strongest dinghy classes at Audi Showdown will be Sabots and Optimists, with several young sailors competing, including top Sabot sailor Sam King.

Heading the Farr 40 fleet will be Andrew Hunn and Lloyd Clark’s Voodoo Chile, the crew fresh from last weekend’s Queensland Farr championship, in which they sailed a chartered yacht. Major competition this weekend should come from Wired, helmed by Sam Boyes.

The SB20 sports boat class, the largest one-design class racing on the Derwent, will field a fleet of close to a dozen boats, heading by Karabos which Nick Rogers helmed into second place overall in last weekend’s Australian championships on Melbourne’s Port Phillip.

Adding a spectacle to sailing on the Derwent will be the Paper Tiger fleet from Lauderdale Yacht Club, including Tasmanian champion and international representative Bruce Rose.