Announcement

**PD Staff** · 03-04-2011, 10:45 PM

JJ's LIVE!

JJ's LIVE

**PD Staff** · 03-04-2011, 11:22 PM

**PD Staff** · 03-04-2011, 11:28 PM

Hamlin pulls a rabbit out of the hat and takes race 1!

**Photoboy** · 03-05-2011, 09:29 AM

Kinder Caring: The riggin process

Stepping back a bit, the 1st report from Team Trunk Monkey as they arrive in Sydney to a freshly redecked skiff, Kinder Caring, courtesy the Aussie 18 Footers League. Only caveat, they must roll up their sleeves and get to work rigging the boat with the kit they have brought from the US....

Sydney is 5 hours behind the west coast, but a full day ahead. We landed in Sydney after a 14 hour flight at 7:45 on Monday morning. The first thing that hit us as the airplane doors opened was Summer. We had left San Francisco on a day it was supposed to snow for the first time at sea level since 1976.

We took a taxi to the hotel which is 2 blocks away from the 18 Footer League clubhouse and boat park. By 10:00 we walked up to the boat park to see a beautiful brand new boat being taken off of a trailer. Woody handed us the keys to a brand new refit of the old Maytag boat. Van Munster builders had just completed a new deck refit.

The refit consisted of removal of the old deck and internal framing. Additional reinforcements were added and the new framing structure was put into the hull. The boat was effectively made brand new.

We immediately got to work drilling holes, attaching hardware, splicing control lines and sheets and generally building the boat from scratch.

We finished the first day at 10 p.m. and were back at the boat park the next day at 9. The second day was much of the same, while we enjoyed 80 degree weather and a scattered shower here and there.

By Wednesday morning, we had the #2 rig up and running. The #2 rig is the smaller of the two rigs and designed for heavy weather sailing. The breeze was a light 6-8 knots out of the North East, but we decided it was worth it to go sailing anyways. After 3 days of work, it was time to get wet!

Sydney Harbor is beautiful. We toured the entire bay making sure to put an eye on all the marks of the courses and begin to learn the tides and winds. We spent about 3 hours on the water just getting ourselves oriented and getting the bugs out.

This morning, Thursday, we spent getting the #1 rig up and running. The #1 rig is the BIG rig!

The #1 rig needed much the same work as the #2 rig the previous day. We built new wire shrouds, spliced on the new trapeze wire attachments and ran the spinnaker halyard. Then it was time to put the rig in the boat and start tuning.

The tuning process is straight forward but time consuming. The boat lies on its side as we get the rake right (mast position for and aft). Then the boat is turned upright so we can eyeball the mast and get it straight side to side. Once the rig is in the right spot, then we make sure the tensions on the shrouds are the correct.

After a couple hours of fiddling, the #1 rig was ready to sail and out we went. The breeze was more than yesterday and we enjoyed another great day on the water.

We focused again on learning the course. Each different wind direction has a different race course. Today was an Easterly breeze at about 12 knots. We tried to identify wind shifts caused by the land and any currents and eddies. We still have a bit to do to get the sails dialed in for optimum speed, but we are close and it was a great start.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the JJ Giltinan festivities. We have the invitational race at 3pm tomorrow, with a 12:30 skippers meeting.

The last three days have been long and a little exhausting. We will sign off for now and write more of an update tomorrow after the race.

Team Kinder Caring
Skip
Jody
Matt

**Photoboy** · 03-05-2011, 09:36 AM

JJ Giltinans Day 1 Report

Defending champion Seve Jarvin and his Gotta Love It 7 team of Sam Newton and Scott Babbage gave an awesome performance to win Race 1 of the Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship on Sydney Harbour today.

[IMG]http://pressure-drop.us/imagehost/images/91782364337878310381.jpg[/IMG

The champion USA team of Howie Hamlin, Fritz Lanzinger and Paul Allen finished second on CST Composites,3m34s behind the winner.

Third place went to the early race leader Smeg, sailed by Nick Press, Dan Phillips and Dave Ewings, which was a further 37s behind CST Composites.

Australian champions Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas finished fourth in Thurlow Fisher Lawyers, with UK skiff Hyde Sails (Andy Budgen, Dan Wilsdon and Matt Wark) fifth, just ahead of Western Australia’s SLAM (Grant Rollerson, Anthony Young and Peter Nicholson).

Asko Appliances (Marcus Ashley-Jones) won the start at the pin end of the line while Gotta Love It 7, CST Composites, Smeg and Western Australia’s Black Swan (David Gilmour) tacked early and went to the right hand side of the course.

This move proved a winner as Black Swan was a shock leader at the windward mark from Smeg, Gotta Love It 7, CST Composites, SLAM and Queenslander 1 (Q1), skippered by David Witt.

After the long spinnaker run to Robertson Point Smeg held the lead from CST Composites and Gotta Love It 7.

These positions then remained unchanged at the following windward mark off Clarke Island.

Little separated the three teams as they began the two-sail reach to Chowder Bay but there was a gap back to Thurlow Fisher Lawyers, Appliancesonline.com.au (Jeremy Wilmot), SLAM, Yandoo (John Winning), Queenslander 1, Black Swan, Rag & Famish Hotel (Jack Macartney) and Hyde Sails.

Gotta Love It 7 edged to the lead over Smeg and CST Composites on this leg then opened up a 50s lead on the beat into Rose Bay.

From that point in the race it was all ‘7’ and most interest centred on the close battle between CST Composites and Smeg.

The performance by the Gotta Love It 7 team has set a high standard and it will be interesting to see how the other top teams respond to the challenge in tomorrow’s second race of the championship.

Today’s Race Results are attached, along with some photos from the race.

More photographs will be published on www.flying18s.com and www.18footers.com.au.

Don’t forget, you can follow all the race action LIVE on http://www.tractrac.com/index.php?page=eventpage&id=138.

Video is produced and broadcast on www.18footers.com.au – ‘video’.

If you think you can correctly select the first three placegetters in each heat, go to www.18footers.com.au and click on ‘video’ to register for “Pick the Podium”.

Frank Quealey
Australian 18 Footers League
0417 421 952

**PD Staff** · 03-06-2011, 10:53 PM

Video Updates From JJ's

Australian 18ft Skiff champions Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas fought back strongly today in Thurlow Fisher Lawyers to score an impressive win in Race 2 of the Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan Championship on Sydney Harbour.

Thurlow Fisher Lawyers took the lead from the first windward leg of the course and put on a wonderful display of light wind sailing to defeat Race 1 winner, Gotta Love It 7, by 1m23s.

© Frank Quealey

Gotta Love It 7’s Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and Scott Babbage had set a challenge to all challengers after a brilliant win yesterday but were unable to match the light wind speed of the winners.

Former Giltinan champion John Winning and his Yandoo crew of Andrew Hay and Dave Gibson were near the head of the fleet all day and finished a further 3m17s back in third place.

Western Australia’s SLAM (Grant Rollerson) finished fourth, followed by Red Claw Wines (Matthew Searle) and TF Collect (Mark Kennedy).

© Frank Quealey

The race was another light day with an easterly breeze which fluctuated between 5-12 knots.

From the start, the fleet was spread across the harbor on the windward beat to the Rose Bay mark.

Positions changed regularly before Thurlow Fisher Lawyers finally took control and led by 30s as spinnakers were set for the downwind legs.

© Frank Quealey

SLAM was in second place, closely followed by Yandoo, Gotta Love It 7 and Red Claw Wines.

Pure Blonde (James Francis) led the next group, which included Queenslander (David Witt), Panasonic (Jonathan Whitty), Rag & Famish Hotel (Jack Macartney) and TF Collect.

Yesterday’s placegetters Smeg (Nick Press) and CST Composites (Howie Hamlin) were buried back in the fleet – 11th and 12th respectively.

Thurlow Fisher Lawyers held her lead downwind then sailed a superb leg back to Rose Bay where the team held a 1m10s lead over Gotta Love It 7.

© Frank Quealey

The other Thurlow Fisher boat TF Collect also sailed well and was in third place just ahead of SLAM, Yandoo and Red Claw Wines.

Smeg and CST Composites had made up four placings over the lap but were still 7th and 8th respectively.

On the final windward leg back to Rose Bay it was truly a two-boat race as Thurlow Fisher Lawyers and Gotta Love It 7 opened up a big break over the rest of the fleet.

After two light wind days, most crews are hoping for more breeze on Tuesday for Race 3 of the seven race championship.

Early predictions are for 15-18 knot north east winds, which would be ideal conditions for great skiff action.

Today’s Race Results are attached, along with some photos from the race.

More photographs will be published on www.flying18s.com and www.18footers.com.au.

Don’t forget, you can follow all the race action LIVE!!!!!!! on
http://www.tractrac.com/index.php?page=eventpage&id=138

Video is produced and broadcast on www.18footers.com.au – ‘video’

If you think you can correctly select the first three placegetters in each heat, go to www.18footers.com.au and click on ‘video’ to register for “Pick the Podium”.
Frank Quealey
Australian 18 Footers League

**PD Staff** · 03-08-2011, 08:34 AM

18ft Skiffs
Race 3
Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship
8 March 2011
Sydney Harbour

(today’s race sponsored by SLAM)

©Frank Quealey

Race 3 of the Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship on Sydney Harbour today produced a brilliant spectacle of racing action and opened up the series with the third different winner so far.

In the 18-20 knot north east wind and ‘run out’ tide against the wind, the racing produced great racing from the world’s best skiff teams and action aplenty as the skiffs raced downwind at a great speed.

©Frank Quealey

UK’s Andy Budgen and his Hyde Sails team of Dan Wilsdon and Matt Wark, had to come from behind to take their victory by 19s from the consistent Red Claw Wines (Matthew Searle, Archie Massey and Mike McKenzie), with Thurlow Fisher Lawyers (Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas) a further 20s back in third place.

Defending champion Seve Jarvin and Gotta Love It 7 team Sam Newton and Scott Babbage had a day they would prefer to forget. The pre championship favourites capsized twice yet still managed to finish fifth and share the championship with Thurlow Fisher Lawyers on 8 points.

©Frank Quealey

US champion Howie Hamlin and his CST Composites team Fritz Lanzinger and Paul Allen finished fourth today and hold third place overall on 13 points.

Former Giltinan champion John Winning, Andrew Hay and Dave Gibson were sixth today and are placed fourth on 16 points.

Rounding out the top six overall are today’s winner and second placegetter Hyde Sails and Red Claw Wines on 17 points.

Two early casualties were David Witt’s Queenslander, who was over the line at the start and declared OCS, and SLAM (Grant Rollerson), which broke gear shortly after the start.

The race was only a few minutes old when Gotta Love It 7 capsized on her first tack.

Red Claw Wines and Yandoo were always close to the lead on the beat to the Beashel Buoy windward mark, with Asko Appliances (Marcus Ashley-Jones), Smeg (Nick Press), Hyde Sails, CST Composites and Thurlow Fisher Lawyers.

Red Claw Wines led at the mark from Yandoo, Smeg, Thurlow Fisher Lawyers and Gotta Love It 7, which made a remarkable recovery to be back with the leading group.

The spinnaker run to the wing mark off Shark Island then back to the bottom mark off Clarke Island produced absolutely great action as the skiffs took off at great speed.

Nick Press, Dan Phillips and Dave Ewings grabbed the lead before the wing mark and turned for the second windward beat with a handy lead over the group consisting Red Claw Wines, Hyde Sails, Thurlow Fisher Lawyers and Gotta Love It 7.

©Frank Quealey

Queenslander, unaware of her OCS situation led the next group which included Pure Blonde (James Francis), CT Sailbattens (Alex Vallings NZ), Asko Appliances, Rag & Famish Hotel (Jack Macartney), Panasonic (Jonathan Whitty), Kenwood-Rabbitohs (Evan Walker) and WA’s Black Swan (David Gilmour).

The leaders staged an interesting battle upwind with positions changing regularly.

Smeg turned the Beashel Buoy with a 35s lead over Hyde Sails, Gotta Love It 7, Red Claw Wines, CST Composites and Thurlow Fisher Lawyers and a victory was looking likely.

Disaster struck as the Smeg team made their final gybe to the bottom mark when they capsized and all hope of a win had gone.

Hyde Sails grabbed the lead but was coming under strong pressure from Gotta Love It 7, which was displaying an amazing recovery after her earlier swim.

As the pair raced downwind to the wing mark on the final spinnaker run, Gotta Love It 7 unexpectedly capsized near Neilsen Park, leaving Hyde Sails to go on to win from Red Claw Wines.

Altogether, it was a great day’s racing and spectators went home hoping for more good breeze tomorrow and wondering if we would get a fourth winner from four races.

Today’s Race Results are attached, along with some photos from the race.

More photographs will be published on www.flying18s.com and www.18footers.com.au.

LIVE TRACING is proving very popular as you catch all the action on http://www.tractrac.com/index.php?page=eventpage&id=138

Video coverage of today’s action can be seen on www.18footers.com.au – ‘video’.

Don’t forget, if you think you can pick the first three place getters in each race, go to www.18footers.com.au and click on ‘video’ to register for “Pick the Podium”.

Frank Quealey
Australian 18 Footers League

**Photoboy** · 03-08-2011, 05:01 PM

Kinder Caring Reporting

This has been a tough couple of days. We are struggling to get any speed out of the boat and our boat handling has suffered as a consequence. When we are searching for anything that we can do to make the boat go faster, we begin getting out of our choreographed routines and that causes mistakes.

Race 2 was the first time we got off the line with a clear lane. Sunday was unreal out on the bay. There are more boats than I have seen on the water in such a small space since Cowes week a few years ago.

We struggled to get the boat moving through the steep, short chop and began going backwards almost immediately. Just plain frustrating.

Monday was a layday. I got a chance to see a client in downtown Sydney and then Jody and I drove out to Bondi Beach and toured the rest of the Northern Sydney suburb. Matt, Courey, Paul and Jade toured through Sydney and found a climbing gym. They went up to Manly Beach via ferry for the afternoon.

Yesterday was the big Nor-Easter. We were excited to have our conditions on Sydney Harbor! The wind was in the low 20’s and the water was warm. It was amazing. We threw the 2 rig in and went out to enjoy a blustery day.

Again, we just couldn’t hold a lane off the start line and slipped to leeward of the entire fleet. We flipped over half way up the first beat on a bad tack and then had kite problems on the first set. The new halyard again wouldn’t stay in the cleat and ran all the way out twice. Luckily there was enough wind to keep the kite off the water and we were able to save the kite both times. Matt re-tied the halyard to a different spot and we were able to keep the kite up for the remainder of the screaming downwind. The boat was moving!

However, on our douse, we stuffed the bow into the back of the wave and over we went again. With a hole in our kite we pulled the plug.

The next few days look to be light winds between 10 and 12 kts. We are hoping to get a little more dialed in on our #1 rig. We are going to be loosening the D1 shrouds (just under the 1st spreader) to allow for a little more power in the bottom of the sail. Hopefully this works.

It’s hard to reflect back on how we are doing overall. At this point we are not even racing against the fleet we are so far behind on most legs. Its frustrating and humbling but it’s the beginning of a long commitment to this class. We are hungry to get more time and effort into our program and we hope next year will be a very different year.

Until then we are focused on learning as much as we can about the location and the winds. The people here are incredibly kind and generous. They are open with their local knowledge and give us advise on setup and tuning. We are learning a ton and will be putting that to good use over the next 12 months before the next JJ’s.

Until our next report,

Team Kinder Caring
Skip
Jody
Matt

**PD Staff** · 03-09-2011, 10:12 AM

JJ Eye Candy

Christophe Favreau captures this action from yesterdays Saydney Harbor activities!

You can check out more of Christophe's work Here!

**PD Staff** · 03-09-2011, 10:17 AM

Quealy Report Day 4

Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan Championship
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Sydney Harbour

(Today’s race sponsored by Red Claw Wines)

©Frank Quealey

Australian champions Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas gave a faultless exhibition in Thurlow Fisher Lawyers to win Race 4 of the Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship on Sydney Harbour today.

The win gives the Thurlow Fisher Lawyers team the outright lead in the series on 9 points, three ahead of defending champion Seve Jarvin and his Gotta Love It 7 team of Sam Newton and Scott Babbage.

Second today was Smeg (Nick Press, Dan Phillips and Dave Ewings), which finished 1m20s behind the winner, while Western Australia’s SLAM (Grant Rollerson, Anthony Young and Peter Nicholson) was a further 1m5s back in third place.

©Frank Quealey

Overall point scores behind Thurlow Fsiher Lawyers and Gotta Love It 7 are US champion Howie Hamlin and his CST Composites team Fritz Lanzinger and Paul Allen on 18 points, Yandoo (John Winning, Andrew Hay, Dave Gibson) and Red Claw Wines (Matthew Searle, Archie Massey, Mike McKenzie) both on 23 and Smeg on 27.

Today’s race was delayer for 1h45m due to a lack of wind, but when the light north east breeze arrived another unpredictable race was on.

©Frank Quealey

Howie Hamlin’s CST Composites and Thurlow Fisher Lawyers while Gotta Love It 7 was further back in the pack.

Thurlow’s boat speed was missing yesterday with the #2 rig, but it was soon obvious that boat speed was not going to be a problem with the bigger #1 rig.

Half way up the first beat to the Beashel Buoy Thurlow Fisher Lawyers already held a good beak over CST Composites, SLAM, Panasonic (Jonathan Whitty), Spectrum Trimming (Luke Parkinson), Red Claw Wines, TF Collect (Mark Kennedy) De’Longhi (Simon Nearn) and New Zealand’s CT Sailbattens (Alex Vallings).

At the windward mark Thurlow Fisher led CST Composites by 30s with SLAM in third place, followed by Panasonic, Smeg, Spectrum Trimming, Red Claw, De’Longhi and Gotta Love It 7, which was 1m30s from the leader.

©Frank Quealey

With a little more east in the breeze, all teams completed several gybes downwind to the wing mark where Thurlow Fisher Lawyers had opened up her lead to 55s. over Smeg and CST Composites, followed by De’Longhi and Gotta Love It 7.

Coxon and his crew took the lead out another few secs. At the bottom mark then went further away on the following windward beat back to the Beashel Buoy, where their lead was out to 1m30s.

While Thurlow Fisher was dominating the race, the battle for the minor placings was intense with Smeg, CST Composites and Gotta Love It 7 racing with only a few secs. Separating the trio.

On the final windward leg to the Beashel Buoy all teams elected to sail to the northern shore and SLAM gained time to be within striking distance of Smeg, Gotta Love It 7 and CST Composites.

SLAM took a different line to the other three teams competing for the minor placings on the spinnaker run to the wing mark off Shark Island.

The move paid dividends as SLAM cut out Gotta Love It 7 and CST Composites, to finish third behind Thurlow Fisher Lawyers and Smeg.

Today’s race results and progress point scores are attached along with images from the day’s racing.

More images will be published on www.flying18s.com and www.18footers.com.au.

The LIVE TRACKING is proving to be a great success and if you can’t make it onto the water you should follow the racing on:
http://www.tractrac.com/index.php?page=eventpage&id=138

Video coverage of today’s racing can also be seen on www.flying18s.com – ‘video’, and registering for “Pick the Podium” can be done through the same link.

With three different winners so far, tomorrow’s Race 5 will be all important on the point scoreboard before the final races on Saturday and Sunday.

Frank Quealey
Australian 18 Footers League

**PD Staff** · 03-09-2011, 10:05 PM

Races 1-3 of 2011 JJ Giltinans Video

Heat 3 of the JJ Giltinan International 2011 produced the classic 20 knot North Easterly with all the anticipated drama and action ......

http://www.18footerstv.com/

Race 2

Race 1

Big thanks to http://www.18footerstv.com/

**PD Staff** · 03-10-2011, 10:39 PM

Christophe's All Wet! And We're Loving It!

Christophe Favreau jumped into the sharky waters of Sydney Harbor and collected these great shots from yesterdays JJ Giltinans! You can check out more of his work Here!

18ft Skiffs
Race 5
Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan Championship
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Sydney Harbour

Today’s race sponsored by Fisher & Paykel

Defending champion Seve Jarvin and his Gotta Love It 7 team Sam Newton and Scott Babbage dominated Race 5 of the Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship sailed in light winds on Sydney Harbour today.

Gotta Love It 7 defeated Thurlow Fisher Lawyers (Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas) by 2m18s and now trails Coxon and his team by just one point, after each discarding their worst performances to date.

Third placing today went to Western Australia’s SLAM (Grant Rollerson, Anthony Young and Peter Nicholson), which finished a further 1m6s behind Thurlow Fisher Lawyers.

On the overall point score (after discards), US champion Howie Hamlin and his CST Composites team Fritz Lanzinger and Paul Allen are third on 16 points, followed by SLAM, also on 16 points.

There is a group of four boats on 23 points, including Yandoo (John Winning), Red Claw Wines (Matthew Searle), Smeg (Nick Press) and Hyde Sails (Andy Budgen).

Another light north-east breeze greeted the fleet today but the performance of Gotta Love It 7 was vastly different to yesterday.

Along with Queenslander (David Witt), Gotta Love It 7 won the critical start and was soon clearly ahead on the first beat to the windward Beashel Buoy.

Mark Kennedy’s TF Collect, Rag & Famish Hotel (Jack Macartney) and Red Claw Wines followed Gotta Love It 7 along the northern shore while Thurlow Fisher Lawyers stood further into the mid harbor and led SLAM.

When the both groups met, Gotta Love It 7 easily crossed Thurlow Fisher Lawyers. Rag & Famish Hotel was in third place ahead of SLAM and TF Collect.

At the Beashel Buoy, Gotta Love It 7 led by 23s from Thurlow Fisher Lawyers, SLAM, Rag & Famish Hotel and Smeg.

The next group was led by Red Claw Wines, TF Collect, Panasonic (Jonathan Whitty) and appliancesonline.com.au (Jeremy Wilmot).

Gotta Love It 7 gybed immediately after rounding then gybed back at Clifton Gardens for the spinnaker run to the Rose Bay wing mark.

7’s lead had edged out to 30s over Thurlow Fisher Lawyers, Rag & Famish Hotel and SLAM.

There was a big gap back to the next group, which was led by New Zealand’s Yamaha (David McDiarmid), ahead of Asko Appliances (Marcus Ashley-Jones), Pure Blonde (James Francis), Hyde Sails, CST Composites and appliancesonline.com.au.

Gotta Love It 7 continued to increase her lead throughout the race while Thurlow Fisher Lawyers was just as entrenched in second place.

SLAM got the better of Rag & Famish Hotel to finish third, while there was a long gap back to the remainder of the fleet.

It’s been a hard grind for competitors with a series of light and fluctuating breezes so hopes are for more of the 20-knots north-east wind seen on Race 3.

More images will be published on www.flying18s.com and www.18footers.com.au.

Don’t forget the LIVE TRACKING will continue throughout the remaining races of the championship on:
http://www.tractrac.com/index.php?page=eventpage&id=138

Video coverage of today’s racing can also be seen on www.18footers.com.au – ‘video’, and you can also register for ‘Pick the Podium’ on the same link.

Race 6 will be sailed on Saturday with the last race on Sunday.

Frank Quealey
Australian 18 Footers League

**PD Staff** · 03-13-2011, 11:32 AM

Love It 7 Wins 2011 JJ's!

Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan Championship Sunday, 13 March 2011

Sydney Harbour

After a controversial morning before today’s race 7 of the Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship, the Gotta Love It 7 crew of Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and Scott Babbage put it all behind them to take out the championship with an impressive win on Sydney Harbour.

Gotta Love It 7 was disqualified after yesterday’s Race 6 win and was conceding series leader Thurlow Fisher Lawyers (Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas) three points going into the last race.

They needed to win the race and hope that Thurlow Fisher Lawyers would not finish within the top three.

The final points for the championship were tied when Gotta Love It 7 won today’s race by 27s from a gallant Rag & Famish Hotel sailed by Jack Macartney, Tom Clout and Drewe Waller, while Thurlow Fisher Lawyers finished only fifth.

Gotta Love It 7 took the title on count back with three wins against Thurlow’s two.

Western Australia’s Grant Rollerson, with his SLAM team Anthony Young and Peter Nicholson, was seventh today but their consistency over the seven race regatta was enough to get them third place overall on 27 points, ahead of Red Claw Wines (Matthew Searle, Archie Massey and Mike McKenzie) on 28, CST Composites sailed by US champion Howie Hamlin, Fritz Lanzinger and Paul Allen on 29 and Yandoo (John Winning, Andrew Hay and Dave Gibson) sixth on 35 points.

With a building north east breeze, the rig decision within the fleet was split between the bigger #1 rig and the #2.

The crucial contest between Gotta Love It 7 and Thurlow Fisher Lawyers was included in the split with Gotta Love It 7 making the correct choice (#2 rig) when the wind freshened to around 18-20 knots.

Jack Macartney and his Rag & Famish Hotel crew gave a great display to lead for most of the race – only to be run down by the championship winners on the final windward leg.

While Jack Macartney is an Australian 18ft Skiff champion as crew with Micah Lane, this is his first season as skipper and the team has been a big improver over the season.

Today’s race attracted a large spectator fleet onto the harbor, including at least three ferries full of supporters as well as hundred of power boats and yachts of all sizes.

It was a spectacular finish to a closely contested championship which has been viewed throughout the world following the introduction of LIVE TRACKING for the first time.

LIVE TRACKING IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE AND IS DEFINITELY HERE TO STAY.

Today’s race results and provisional final points scores are attached along with images from today’s racing.

More images will be published on www.flying18s.com and www.18footers.com.au.

Video coverage of today’s race can also be seen on www.18footers.com.au ‘ ‘video’.

Frank Quealey

Australian 18 Footers League

**PD Staff** · 03-15-2011, 04:10 PM

Final video fro 2011 JJ's

Hamlin interview from last week

Race 6

The final Race

Announcement

JJ Gilitnan Invitation Race

JJ Gilitnan Invitation Race

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