Class Newsletter

Class Newsletter

Winter swing of 4

Sail the east coast this winter with 4 well timed regattas.

Starting with the Waterloo Cup in Brisbane in early May, the Gold Coast Championship late May, then Mooloolaba for the Australasian Winter Championship on the June long weekend, and Coffs Harbour late June.

FULL CALENDAR 

Message from President Martin Hill

Martin Hill

The first three months of 2023 have seen several successful Etchells Championships, which is a good indicator of a resurgence of the class in Australia. It was terrific to see sailors back together again, enjoying the high level of competition as well as camaraderie off the water. You can see links to detailed reports of these regattas in this newsletter and on our website and Facebook page.

As I get ready to travel to the Miami Worlds (12 -22 April) I reflect that it won’t be long before we have our own World Championships, with Perth in March 2024 followed by Melbourne in January 2025. There will be four Australian boats in Miami, as well as several Australian sailors on other boats and I’m sure everyone will take the opportunity to promote both fabulous sailing locations.

There has been a lot of work going on at Innovation Composites with 12 M11 boats already modified and another 5 in the pipeline. Thanks all the people involved through the process, including the builder, those driving boats around the country and those working with the class measurers to get the measurement done. The next major project is the completion of Mould 12 and the build of the prototype boat so that the builder can be licenced. The tentative plan shows this completed in early August and we are excited to be getting Etchells building up and running in Australia again.

All the best to the Australian teams and crew members racing in Miami, including AUS1435 (Jeanne-Claude Strong, Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton), AUS932 (Ron Jacobs, Simon Reffold, Peter McNeill), AUS1466 (Chris Hampton and team), and AUS1514 (Chris Manton, Rod Hagebols, Nigel Abbott).  We also have Mark Johnson and Nic Burfoot sailing on USA1472 Team Roulette with Dave Edwards supporting, Noel Drennon sailing on GBR1438, Ben Lamb on USA1513, Malcolm Page on HKG 1496,  and Will Ryan on USA 1477. We’ll all be watching the race coverage on the International Etchells Facebook page and the regatta site.

27 - 28 May 2023

Gold Coast Championship

The Gold Coast Fleet and the Southport Yacht Club invite you to the 2nd Annual Gold Coast Etchells Championship. The event will be 2 days of racing on 27 and 28 of May. The event is part of the winter swing of 4 Etchells Sailing events.

Racing will be offshore of the beautiful Gold Coast skyline, includes lots of prizes and a great social program.

Special thanks to our major sponsors North Sails, Harken and Bosun’s Locker.

Upcoming Regattas

Recent Event News

Back to news