2019 BMW SB20 Australian Championship at Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania - Preview
by Jane Austin 31 Oct 2019 16:29 AEDT
1-3 November 2019
Porco Rosso leads the 2018 SB20 Australian Championship Fleet © Jane Austin
Racing will be hard and fast in the 2019 BMW SB20 Australian Championship with some of the world’s most accomplished SB20 one-design sailors on the water for the three-day regatta. Current Australian Champions Michael Cooper, David Chapman and Sam Tiedemann (Export Roo) will be defending their title, but there is a swag of contenders in the classy 20 boat fleet, which will sail from the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania. 2017 champions Brett Cooper and Darren Jones, sailing with Jock Calvert (Aeolus) are fresh from their international campaign where they placed fifth in the SB20 World Championship and the French Grand Slam, and picked up silver in the French Nationals.
Another serious contender is 2014 champion Chris Dare, sailing with son Lachlan and Oliver Tweddell (Ambition). “It’s the first time we’ve had the boat out since the 2018 Worlds in Hobart as we’ve been busy with the TP52 program. It looks like a tough fleet with the boats just back from the 2019 Worlds in France. I’m sure we’ll find that the fleet has progressed a lot since 2018. While we don’t have any great expectations, we are looking forward to the close racing as our first step towards the 2020 Worlds in Portugal,” said Dare.
2018 Women’s SB20 World Champion Clare Dabner will join class stalwarts Jill Abel, Bridget Hutton and Mel Ford on Cook Your Own Dinner while skipper Felicity Allison recovers from surgery, and the event has also attracted Singapore-based Geoff Masters, Andrew Crombie and Alex Lyons sailing Meraki.
The Australian SB20 fleet features several former world champion sailors who enjoy nothing more than intense and competitive sailing. Paul Burnell will be back on the water following back surgery, joining sons Oli and Toby on Honey Badger, while former World Masters Foiler Moth sailor Rob Gough and son James, team up with 2018 Australian SB20 Youth Champion Will Sargent and Jacob McConaghy on Difficult Woman.
The fleet will be missing the 2019 SB20 World Championship bronze medallists, Andrew Smith and Lewis Noye, who are taking a break after an intense international campaign, however crew member David Chapman re-joins Export Roo for the regatta.
The championship will run over three days as part of the Hobart BMW Showdown Regatta. A maximum of ten races can be sailed with teams discarding their worst score after six races. Racing gets underway at 1300 on Friday 1 November.