Season begins

The Australian 18 Footers League’s 2020-2021 Season will commence on Sunday 11 October with the Spring Championship series.

07 October 2020

A fleet of 18 top skiff teams will line up for the race, which will be sailed over one of the club’s 3-buoy courses to best suit the prevailing wind conditions at the time.

The 2019-2020 series champion skipper Brett Van Munster has retired from the 18s and won’t defend his title, but his crew from last season, Kurt Fatouris and Phil Marshall, are still in the fleet and have now joined Keagan York’s Finport Finance team and will be attempting to defend their title.

Last year’s winning skiff, appliancesonline.com.au is also still in the fleet, now skippered by the League’s Commodore Simon Nearn.

As well as competing for series points, the teams are also competing in Race 1 for the Major Arthur Frizelle Trophy.

Major Frizelle was Rear-Commodore of the League during the club’s first two seasons – 1935-1936 and 1936-1937. During the following season, he took the NSW team to Brisbane for the Australian Championship and in 1939 became President of the League.

2019 Spring champion Appliancesonline team prepare for mark rounding.

Action shortly after the start.

Battling the traffic.

Birkenhead Point Marina and Noakes Blue at top speed down a long southerly spinnaker run.

Ilve and Winning Group on a spinnaker run out of Rose Bay.

Smeg leads Noakesailing to the first mark.

tech2 heads for the finish line ahead of The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines.

tech2 leads Dal Zotto.

The Kitchen Maker-Caesarstone and Winning Group.

The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines leads Finport Finance to the bottom mark.

The rookie Vintec team members, from left Alex Marinelli, Flynn Twomey, Tom Cunich.

Three leaders work their way to the windward mark in Rose Bay.

Tight spinnaker action.

Video team chase the three leaders down the spinnaker run.

Winning Group and Shaw & Partners Financial Services close battle downwind.

Yandoo chases Appliancesonline during last year's Spring Championship.

The 18-boat fleet has an incredible mixture of experienced and rookie teams in the line-up for the 2020-2021 Season.

The current Australian champion Jack Macartney (tech2) and three-times JJ Giltinan world champion Michael Coxon (Smeg) are expected to be at, or near, the head of the fleet throughout the season, but the 3-buoy system used during the Spring Championship is designed to keep the racing tight and action-packed.

Several teams which produced strong performances late in the 2019-2020 Season are expected to challenge for the Spring Championship title.

Among those teams are The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines (Aron Everett), Yandoo (John Winning), Noakesailing (Sean Langman), Finport Finance (Keagan York), The Kitchen Maker-Caesarstone (Jordan Girdis) and those led by Tom Clout and Marcus Ashley-Jones.

Four teams, Birkenhead Point Marina (Tim Westwood), Vintec (Tom Cunich), Shaw & Partners Financial Services (Jim Colley) and Dal Zotto (Lachlan Steel) will have skippers who are having their first season as skipper in the 18s.

Tim Westwood is no stranger to the 18s and was a part of James Dorron’s Shaw & Partners Financial Services team which finished fourth in the JJ Giltinan Championship earlier this year.

Tim is also an accomplished international competitor. He was a member of the Japan team at the 2017 Red Bull Youth America’s Cup and is a member of the Japanese SailGP team.

Tim and his team have already shown the professionalism and enthusiasm required to be successful in the 18s. Since securing the skiff and the support of a top sponsor as Birkenhead Point Marina, the team has already spent many hours on the water practicing in a variety of conditions.

The young Vintec team are at the other end of preparations. They only recently got their skiff and went for their first 18 Footer sail at the start of October.

18footers.com.au

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