Aussie crew for GAC Pindar

GAC Pindar has joined forces with Team Australia, the Challenger of Record for the 35th America’s Cup, for this year’s Extreme Sailing Series and has announced a talented young crew to spearhead its 2014 campaign. The new all-Aussie team will be led by Seve Jarvin, 27, who will be the youngest skipper in the series.

For the first time, the Extreme Sailing Series will be coming to Australia this year with the final Act of the Series to be sailed on Sydney Harbour in December.

The Series is sailed aboard the Extreme 40 designed by Olympic champions Yves Loday and Australian Mitch Booth, with the aim to provide the international sailing arena with a visually stunning and 100 per cernt performance-focused multihull. 

Flying a hull in as little as 8 knots of breeze (15 kph), the 40-foot (12m) long carbon speed machine requires coordination, finesse but also sheer muscular power from the crews who battle it out on short courses during races that do not exceed 15-20 minutes. And there can be up to 8 of them per day! 

Tricky wind conditions combined with the level of competition inevitably lead to some spectacular crashes, capsizes and other hair-raising near misses as the previous seasons proved. Logistically, everything is put in place so that teams can resume racing as soon as possible should an incident occur, and the professionalism of shore teams are clearly comparable to that of Formula 1 squads operating in the pit zone.

The new GAC Pindar skipper, Jarvin is a seven-times 18-foot Skiff World Champion aboard Gotta Love it 7, and also World Youth Match Racing Champion, having started his sailing career as a youngster on Sydney Harbour, the new venue for the Final Act of the 2014 Extreme Sailing Series.

While Jarvin will be new to both multihulls and the series, his crew is packed with know-how. Supporting the young skipper will be Ed Smyth (39, Trimmer), who has competed in three America’s Cups and was part of last year’s Extreme Sailing Series. 

Alongside Jarvin will be Sam Newton (27, Bowman), part of Oracle Team USA’s America’s Cup winning crew and Troy Tindill (30, Mainsheet), who sailed with Artemis in the America’s Cup World Series, both of whom will bring considerable experience of high-performance catamarans.

Jarvin and the team can also expect significant input from four-times World Match Racing Champion and former GAC Pindar Extreme Sailing Series skipper, Ian Williams, who will be joining the shore team for the first two Acts in Singapore, February 20-23 and Oman March 19-22.

For more information go to: http://www.extremesailingseries.com and www.gacpindar.com.