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2025 2.4mR Australian Championship Paynesville - Peter Russell turns back the clock

by Australian 2.4mR Association 1 Feb 14:33 PST 25-28 January 2025

Gippsland Lakes provided wonderful racing for the 2.4mR fleet with Peter Russell enjoying the "lake-like" challenge for a perfect score of 8 wins. In 2002 Michael Leydon and in 2004 Lachlan Gilbert dropped one second place, and in 2019 Matt Bugg dropped one third place to achieve a perfect score. John Collingwood pushed Peter in every race helping him to turn back the clock and win his fourth Australian Championship.

25 boats!! A brilliant achievement for the class.

Five sailors were awarded life membership of the Australian 2.4mR Association for their contribution to the class - Matt Bugg, Peter Coleman, Peter Thompson, Peter Russell and Neil Patterson.

Thank you to Race Officer Louise Hutton, all the volunteers, and local heroes Lyn Wallace and Brian Carroll for making this a wonderful event (Peter Russell will always treasure the perfect score).

Our next Australian Championship is at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, Perth on 3-5 April 2026 with many sailors registering their interest in the journey to WA at our AGM. The 2.4mR class in Australia will celebrate our 30th Australian Championship in 2027 at Royal Brighton Yacht Club, Melbourne.

Gippsland Lakes Yacht Club just completed hosting the 28th International 2.4 metre Yacht Australian Championship 2024/2025 which was held on Australia Day weekend. Twenty-six competitors and those accompanying them travelled from Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart, Perth and Paynesville towing their little but impressively beautiful 2.4mR yachts (which are actually 4.18 metres long).

These yachts look very much like all the classic metre boats, streamlined, deep keeled, with a main sail and a jib which, if the mast is raked somewhat forward, can almost function like a spinnaker.

Gippsland Lakes Yacht Club was honoured to have Louise Hutton, an Australian National Race Officer, probably the youngest and only woman to attain those credentials, to oversee the racing. Her expertise and her relaxed approach to the sailors and volunteers set the tone for this great championship experience.

Their first day of competition was on Saturday, the 25th, and the little boats bobbed around out on Lake Victoria for almost an hour waiting for the wind to settle. When the course of windward and returns could be set at 1400 hrs, the wind chose to settle and stay allowing all three races to be completed without a course change. It was also a lively wind and the sailors were delighted.

The racecourse consisted of windward and leeward returns with a bottom gate, the windward mark, a rounding mark, and windward of the top mark, a sounding buoy was placed should the several vision impaired sailors have difficulty seeing the top mark. They just needed to press a button in their yacht and the buoy would sound.

On the second day, Australia Day, once again the wind was steady and lively, and the three races proceeded successfully. One little addition was that while the 2.4mR boats bobbed around after their first race finished, Lou, the Race Officer, started GLYC's Australian Day Trophy Race with Mosquito cats, trailer sailors, a trimaran and a little Sunfish, who sailed up to the windward mark and sped off for their passage race elsewhere.

At this point in the racing, one sailor stood out, Peter Russell, from the YMCA of Canberra SC, on Morna 7, who won first in every race. Close behind, was John Collingwood from Royal Brighton YC sailing Super Joey, earning second place. Peter Coleman also from RBYC sailing Australia lI IV was working on third.

The final day arrived out of breath, so a postponement flag was hoisted while the start boat with the RO went out to check out the racetrack in Lake Victoria. The wind obliged and the fleet sailed out for the last two races to complete the series. And once again, Peter Russell snagged the last two wins given him a perfect 8 first places and this year's National Champion for 2024/2025.

Once most of the boats were pulled out and prepared for their journeys home, the Presentations were held. Winning second place was John Collingwood from RBYC, and Peter Coleman also from RBYC won third place.

The first-place trophy was a tall impressive wooden trophy, but was quite unusual as it sported an old beat-up unopened can on the top. The story goes that the can was part of the provisions on Kay Cottee's yacht, "Blackmore's First Lady", which she sailed single-handed around the world in1988 earning her the first Australian woman sailor to complete the voyage successfully. Kay didn't like asparagus and auctioned off her stash for charity at $1000 a can and this particular can was one of them.

2025 2.4mR Australian Championship Overall Results (drops = 1)

Place Sail# Name Skipper Club Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Race 5 Race 6 Race 7 Race 8 Score
1 03 Morna 7 Peter Russell YMCASC 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7
2 34 Super Joey John Collingwood RBYC 2 2 3 2 8 2 2 2 15
3 53 Australia II. IV Peter Coleman RBYC 4 6 2 5 7 5 7 3 32
4 28 Vim Glenn Ferguson RBYC 6 3 8 8 3 8 12 6 42
5 39 What Could Possibly Go Wrong? David Graney RYCT 17 15 7 4 4 4 13 4 51
6 43 Emilou Ray Smith RBYC 12 9 5 3 9 18 10 5 53
7 09 Advance Australia Peter Warren YMCASC 11 7 6 6 12 7 6 19 55
8 22 Mach 2.4 Ryan Epstein RBYC 3 11 14 10 5 9 8 17 60
9 44 Fab Babs Colin Brown YMCASC 7 5 10 15 11 26 (DNS) 4 15 67
10 27 Tina Michael Bunyard RBYC 9 13 19 12 6 3 18 9 70
11 62 Supertoy Two.four Brian Carroll GLYC 8 8 13 11 10 17 11 11 72
12 40 Tazmaniac Gary Davidson RYCT 21 22 9 19 2 6 17 8 82
13 08 Billycart David Meldrum GLYC 16 4 11 20 17 13 14 7 82
14 01 The Shmoo Eric Hines YMCASC 5 18 4 16 15 21 16 16 90
15 86 Mathilde Ron Parker GLYC 20 20 21 9 13 12 5 12 91
16 04 Tuppence Robert Campbell RFBYC 19 10 18 22 14 15 3 13 92
17 14 Whitewash Mark Seager RBYC 13 16 12 17 16 10 9 26 (DNF) 93
18 10 Sea Wolf Mal Ware RBYC 15 14 15 13 18 11 15 14 97
19 29 Sw2ift John Brodziak RFBYC 14 21 17 14 19 16 21 10 111
20 48 Qvo Imvs Hugh Howard GLYC 23 19 20 7 21 14 20 18 119
21 32 Squeezebox Glenn Norton RBYC 10 12 23 18 20 20 26 (DNS) 26 (DNS) 129
22 12 Southern Cross Gary Bunyard RBYC 22 17 22 21 22 19 19 20 140
23 07 Didtella Roger Plowman GLYC 24 23 16 24 23 22 22 21 151
24 46 Kurpitsa Tish Ennis YMCASC 25 24 24 23 24 23 23 22 163
25 00 Rocky Sean Hogan RBYC 18 26 (DNS) 26 (DNS) 26 (DNC) 26 (DNC) 26 (DNS) 26 (DNC) 26 (DNC) 174

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