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At a specially called General Meeting last Friday, Yachting Australia’s Member State & Territory Associations unanimously approved the change of the company’s name to Australian Sailing. The change of name embodies the most significant organisational reforms in the sport’s history which are in the final stages of delivery.

Full article from Australian Sailing below:

Yachting Australia Embarks on a Name Change to Australian Sailing

Derwent Sailing Squadron’s popular Autumn Short-Handed Series has finished with just four out of six scheduled Sunday races being sailed, and in one of those nearly half the fleet failed to finish.

Wild westerlies forced the DSS to abandon the first planned race and last Sunday the westerlies blew too fiercely for safe sailing, in particular with crews of just two or three handling the boats.

In contrast, a morning of light and flukey winds for race four saw Wayne Banks-Smith’s Farr 40 War Games the only finisher in Division 1 and Wicked (Andrew Blakney) the only SB20 to complete the course. Other divisions similarly affected.

The series attracted more than 50 entries with divisions for two-handed and three-handed cruiser/racers and a SB20 two-handed division.

Overall winner of Division 1 was Ian Johnston’s Farr MX41 Zephyr by just two points from Ciao Baby II (Gary Cripps) and another two points to Neil Snare’s Winstead Wines.

The J24 Zest (Matt Westland) won Division 2 with a consistent score of 1-3-1-4, comfortably ahead of Serenity (Graham Hall) and 42 South (Mark Ballard).

Andrew Sutherland’s Silver Mist also sailed consistently in Division 3 with placings of 4-1-2-1 to easily win Division 3 from Jigsaw (Scott Morrison) and Magellan (Richard Grant).

Just one point separated l’Etoile (John Dawson) and Trad Jazz (Chris Thompson) in Division 4 with Dynamo (Stephen Davidson) a close third.

Consistency paid off for Andrew Blakney’s Wicked in the SB20 class, 4-4-3-1, with Export Roo (Michael Cooper) a distant second after contesting only two races for a first and a second. Blue Gull (Bruce Granville) finished third overall.

Ashore, the Derwent Sailing Squadron this afternoon will hold the ‘grand opening’ of the Roy Barkas Marina Extension – irrespective of the weather – giving the DSS the largest marina capacity of any club in Tasmania.

Club winter racing gets under way on the Derwent on Sunday with Bellerive Yacht Club running the first of its Winter Series, followed by the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania the following Sunday and then the Derwent Sailing Squadron on Sunday, 5 June.

Peter Campbell
19 May 2016

Hobart sailor Matt Bugg has won his second successive regatta in Europe in his lead-up to the Rio Paralympic Games, scoring an impressive victory in the Garda Trentino Olympic Week on Italy’s Lake Garda which ended early today.

Bugg last week won the gold medal 2.4mR class at the Hyeres Regatta in France and has followed this with an overall win on Lake Garda where weather conditions curtailed racing in most Olympic and Paralympic classes.

The 2.4mR class was restricted to seven races with Bugg winning four of them and finishing third in two of the other races.

His discard was a seventh, which gave him an 11 point margin from American Dee Smith, who will represent the USA at Rio.

Third place went to Finnish sailor Niko Salomaa, who also is heading for Rio.
This year’s regatta will certainly go down as one of the most disappointing editions of Garda Trentino Olympic Week; on one hand for the absence of many of the Olympic Laser and Finn classes who were at other regattas are in preparation for the Rio Olympics, and for the other for the terrible weather that limited the number of races.

This is practically unheard of in a location like Upper Garda where the normal weather conditions guarantee at least three races a day with winds on average 12-14 knots.

Matt Bugg racing on Lake Garda this week.  He won the 2.4mR class.

Matt Bugg racing on Lake Garda this week. He won the 2.4mR class.

This, however, was not to be. The regatta Committee on the race courses of Riva del Garda (Fraglia Vela Riva) and Malcesine (Fraglia Vela Malcesine) gave it their best shot.

Peter Campbell
14 May 2016

Tasmanian sailor Matt Bugg has won the gold medal in the Paralympic 2.4 Norlin One Design class at the Sailing World Cup Hyéres regatta in France, his best-ever international result.

In a significant lead-up to the Rio Paralympic Games, Bugg ended the eight-race regatta early tday with a win and second place, outsailing many of his likely competitors at Rio, including London 2012 Paralympic gold medallist Helena Lucas.

The Hobart sailor, who became a paraplegic in a board skiing accident in Europe, won two of the eight races at Hyéres, had three seconds, a third, a sixth and a seventh, his discard race.

He is the current Australian open champion in the 2.4 class and in January finished second in the open world championship conducted by the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania on the River Derwent in January.

Sailing was delayed for three hours before racing got underway in light, unsteady conditions before the heavier mistral conditions came in, eventually dying out late in the afternoon.

Bugg revelled in the conditions, as he has done throughout this regatta in which he has led from start to finish, notching up a scoreboard of 1-3-2-2-6-(7)-1-2 to finish eight points clear of Bjermar Erikstad (NOR) with Damien Sanquin (FRA) third overall.

Interviewed at the end of the Hyéres regatta, Bugg said: “I started the event with a win on day one, and managed to stay on top of the leader board for the rest of the week.

“We had a mix of conditions, we had light air and heavy air. I think it was a good test of an all-round sailor this week.

“RIo is what I have been working for, for the last four years. (He placed seventh at the London 2012 Paralympics).

“To come out and start my European season with a win will give me confidence leading into my next major regatta, which is the World championships, and ultimately the really important one, the Paralympic Games in September,” Bugg added.

Australia’s Olympic sailors also competing at Hyéres have strong prospects of adding to the team’s medal tally in the medal racing today.

Tom Burton leads the Laser dinghy class while Jake Lilley heads the Finn class. In the 470 men, Matthew Belcher and Will Ryan are second overall, as are Will Phillips and Sam Phillips in the 49ers.

Peter Campbell
1 May 2016

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