Weekly Sailing Summary

18 FOOTERS

The Australian 18 Footers League opened its 2010-2011 season with the traditional Alf Beashel Memorial Trophy race on Sydney Harbour on 10 October. The race, which was sailed over the club’s easterly-wind three-buoys course, resulted in a win for Project Racing, skippered by Andy Budgen with crewmen Cameron McDonald and Dan Wilsdon. www.18footers.com.au

KEEL BOATS

Stephen Ainsworth and his Reichel/Pugh 63 Loki broke the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s 92nm Flinders Islet Race record, completing the race in seven hours and 48 minutes and winning the race overall. The race marked the first anniversary of the death of two of the Club’s finest sailors, Andrew Short and Sally Gordon. www.cyca.com.au

Noel Cornish sailed his Sydney 47 St Jude to win the drawn-out Port Hacking Race, the second race of the Ocean Pointscore Series conducted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. Denis Doyle and Lynne Smith’s X-412 Sextant took the trifecta of line honours, IRC and PHS divisional wins in the Grant Thornton Short Haul Short Ocean Race. www.cyca.com.au

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first person to sail single handed and non-stop around the world, has signed up to crew on the British yacht Titania of Cowes in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. Sir Robin and the 68ft Swan’s owner/skipper are both members of the Imperial Poona Yacht Club, a convivial and select institution founded in the 1930s which challenges current Oxford undergraduates to a backwards sailing race down the Thames each year. www.cyca.com.au

Hobart turned on perfect spring weather for the start of the yachting season on 2 October, with more than 120 racing and cruising yachts, motor cruisers and dinghies taking part in the 130th Opening Day on the River Derwent. Vistula, the smallest boat in the fleet, beat the time limit by just four minutes to win the Channel Race, the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s opening race of the yachting season. www.ryct.org.au

Captain David Ellis of the Port Phillip Sea Pilots and the crew of Surprise have a new toy to play with - an Archambault 31 called Penfold Audi Sport. Cadibarra (VIII), recently returned to Port Phillip from Queensland, is now owned by Paul Roberts from the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria. The Jones 42 was the last of Don Jones' Cadibarras and still holds the Melbourne to King Island record. www.orcv.org.au

Australia's longest category one race, the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s Melbourne to Vanuatu (M2V) race, is on for the third time in 2014. www.orcv.org.au

MATCH RACING

Teams from the Gosford and Hunter regions battled it out on Brisbane Water in a magic introduction to youth academy match racing. Conditions were ideal as the two teams, spearheaded by top sailors Tom Slingsby and Iain Jensen, battled it out in two Magic 25s until light faded in front of Gosford Sailing Club. www.gosfordsailingclub.com.au

Triple Olympic gold medalist Ben Ainslie (GBR) Teamorigin added a second Argo Group Gold Cup to his team’s trophy cabinet after a final against Jesper Radich (DEN) Gaastra Racing Team in Stage 8 of the World Match Racing Tour in Bermuda. Australian Torvar Mirsky place eighth. www.wmrt.com

MULTIHULLS

Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker and regular teammates Winston Macfarlane and Jeremy Lomas are racing in the Extreme Sailing Series in Almeria, Spain with Australian double Olympic Silver medallist and multihull specialist, Darren Bundock. www.extremesailingseries.com

SOLAR POWER

The world’s largest solar boat PlanetSolar started its epic journey around the world from Monaco on 27 September. The initiators of this project, including the owner, German entrepreneur Immo Ströher, want to focus public awareness on the importance of renewable energies for environmental protection. The first leg of the journey is across the Atlantic. Stopovers are envisaged at Miami, Cancun, San Francisco, Sydney, Singapore and Abu Dhabi before returning to Monaco. http://planetsolar.org/index.en.php

NEWS BRIEFS

On-water safety checks were conducted on 771 vessels across New South Wales over the long weekend, according to NSW Maritime. Twenty four infringements and 21 formal warnings were issued. www.maritime.nsw.gov.au

A cargo vessel registered in Panama had an unscheduled emergency stop off the coast of Yamba. The 128m ship lost an estimated 600 packs of timber cargo when it encountered bad weather 43 nautical miles north-east of Coffs Harbour. Surveillance of the area off Coffs Harbour revealed no sign of the missing timber. www.maritime.nsw.gov.au

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Oct 16 – 17 -- 2010 Classic and Wooden Boat Festival, National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, Sydney - 100 boats from graceful yachts to streamlined speedboats, a festive marketplace selling all things nautical and an outstanding display of boating products. Discover the skills of traditional maritime craftsmen including blacksmiths, rope knotters, caulkers and sail makers. www.anmm.gov.au

Oct 17 -- ORCV's Rip Tour shows yacht and powerboat owners how to approach The Rip at Port Phillip Heads in Victoria. The tour, which always sells out departs from Queenscliff and Sorrento and bookings are essential. www.orcv.org.au

Oct 24 -- Davistown Putt Putt Regatta & Wooden Boat Festival, Central Coast NSW. The focus is on the heritage fleet of Putt Putt boats that were a vital form of local transport in the early 1900. Market stalls, on- and off-shore entertainment. www.visitcentralcoast.com.au

Oct 30 -- Hempel Gosford to Lord Howe Island Yacht Race www.gosfordsailingclub.com.au

Nov 7 -- Try Sailing Day NSW. Sailing and yacht clubs around NSW devote their club, boats and instructors to give people of all ages, with little or no experience a chance to experience the joys of sailing for free. www.bia.org.au

Nov 13 - 14 -- The Copper Cove Marina Festival in South Australia will combine the best products and produce from local boating, seafood and wine suppliers. www.coppercove.com.au/marina_festival

Nov 20 – 21 -- 2010 Lipton Cup Regatta, held on Port Phillip. www.liptoncupregatta.yachting.org.au

Dec 6 - 9 -- Sydney International Regatta - Olympic Class regatta on Sydney Harbour www.nsw.yachting.org.au/

Dec 12 - 18 -- Asia Pacific Regatta, part of the ISAF Sailing World Cup, is a grade one Olympic Class regatta. www.sailmelbourne.com.au/

Photograph: Start of the 18 footers Alf Beashel Memorial Trophy -  © Australian 18 Footers League