Australia

The 2020 World and Gold Cup followed a period of revival and grow h in he Au ralian flee . M rtin Cross explain ...

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xxx T he 2019/20 season has been an exciting time for the 5.5 Metre Class in Australia. The highlight being the January 2020 Scandinavian Gold Cup and Worlds at The Royal Prince Alfreds Yacht Club.

Fives are now regularly sailing in Sydney at Vaucluse Yacht Club and the Royal Australian Navy Sailing Association and we have a big revival at RPAYC, 35 km up the coast from Sydney on the beautiful Pittwater, with 14 boats now in the fleet. The revival has included some amazing recent renovations of the amazing old boats including: Kings Cross, Baragoola, Rhapsody, Arunga VII, Arunga X, Ku-Ring-Gai and Ku-Ring-Gai II. It has been wonderful to see these old adversaries competing together again.

Also very recent exciting news. John Bacon has bought a late Modern in Switzerland and long time 5.5 Metre sailor Colin Ryan and his son are rejoining the fleet also with the purchase of another Modern 5.5 Metre. This should mean that along with AUS 63 Beta Crucis (Bob Stoddard/Martin Cross) there will be three Australian Modern 5.5 Metres joining the fleet in Europe for the 2020 season. 2019 started with an epic Festival of Fives week at the end of February with John Bacon, Terry Wetton and James Mayjor taking out the major event, the Nationals in the Modern Ku-Ring-Gai II. Antares (Martin Cross, Ben Byford and Tim Byford) took out the Evolutions and Baragoola (Jason Antill, Tom Spithill and Damian Macey) the Classics. Ku-Ring-Gai II also took out the Alfreds Gold Cup fun twilight race and Lauren Crossman sailed Skagerak to victory in the Thursday night Associates Ladies Twilight Race.

Throughout 2019 the Fives regularly sailed in the club’s sailing programmes and in One Design Regattas with their own class or racing with the Etchells. In the spring in September preparations began in earnest for the Scandinavian Gold Cup and Worlds. Australian Moderns and Evolutions started returning or being bought and imported into Australia and the fleet spruced up. An exciting Gold Cup selection and training weekend was held in the middle of December on the Palm Beach Circle with Beta Crucis (Martin Cross, Bob Stoddard and Martin Bunch) narrowly taking out the Australian selection by winning the last race (Beta Crucis, Ku-Ring-Gai and KuRing-Gai II all having won one race each).

Then in January RPAYC were honoured to hold the first 5.5m Worlds in Australia for 15 years. There are many reports of the racing elsewhere. It was a truly fantastic event enjoyed by the club, members, volunteers and competitors alike. Huge congratulations to Kristian Nergaard and the Team in Artemis XIV who took out the major double (World Champion and Norway winning the Scandinavian Gold Cup), Petter Fjeld and Team in Clark Kent who got hold of the solid gold Alfreds Gold Cup (for at least the evening), John Bacon and Team who took out the Hanko Cup and Evolution Worlds and Baragoola (Jason Antill, Larry Eastwood and Damian Macey) who narrowly won the Kaag Classic Cup and Classic Worlds over the famous Carabella and Kings Cross. Two new trophies were added to this year and for future World Championships. Congratulations to Shaolin, Cyrus Golchan and Team for winning the Corinthian Prize (donated by Kaspar Stubenrauch) and Prettynama, Max Muller and Team for taking out the inclusive RPA Worlds Handicap Jug (donated by The Royal Prince Alfreds Yacht Club).

All the 5.5 Metres sailors down under are now recovering and are looking forward to this years ‘Festival of Fives’ taking place from 29th February to 7th March. Five events and eight days of 5.5 Metre sailing including the Australian 2020 Nationals from 1st to 3rd March. Then it is time for some of the fleet to fly north for the winter to a summer of 5.5 Metre sailing in Europe.