Fourth edition of Audi IRC Australian Championship begins at Audi Victoria Week

The 2009 Audi IRC Australian champion Alegria. Image copyright Andrea Francolini/Audi.

by Di Pearson

The list of IRC entries at Australia’s four largest regattas continues to grow each year - with good reason - and 2010 is no exception. The Audi IRC Australian Championship is the jewel in the crown of sailing anywhere in the country, and to win the title, competitors come to race these events in the hopes of driving off in sailing’s richest prize and for the honour of having their name permanently engraved on the elegant perpetual trophy.

Major sponsor, Audi, is once again gearing up for a competitive national series.

“We are looking forward to a highly-competitive Championship this year. With a brand new luxury car as the major prize, our goal is to encourage a record number of competitors to enter the Series. When the stakes are high, it generates fierce competition which makes for a spectacular national series,” said General Manager, Corporate Communications, Anna Burgdorf.

Audi Victoria Week in 2010 marks the start of the fourth running of the Audi IRC Australian Championship, endorsed by Yachting Australia. Entrants in the three IRC divisions will be working their hardest to win this opening event for their chance to win a luxury Audi vehicle.

Missing from the start line this year is two-time Championship winner, Rod Jones and his ‘Alegria’ crew from Queensland. After winning the inaugural Championship in 2007, Jones won again last year with an upgraded yacht and took home an Audi A6 allroad quattro valued at $115,000 and for the second time his name was engraved on the exquisite Audi IRC Australian Championship Perpetual Trophy designed by John Woulfe


Alegria's Rod Jones (centre with blue Audi leader flags) and his crew with Audi's Anna Burgdorf on right. Image copyright Andrea Francolini/Audi.

To be held from January 23-26, Jones can’t make the six-race IRC Series of the Royal Geelong Yacht Club organised regatta, because he is awaiting the arrival of his new yacht from France. “But we should be on the start line for the Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta in March,” says Jones of the second event of the series.

The Audi Sydney-Gold Coast Yacht Race in July is the third event of the Championship and the 2010 champion will be decided at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week in August. Three of the four regattas count in each yacht’s score.

It is every skipper’s dream to win the Championship and one of the best IRC Grand Prix fleets seen anywhere in Australia will take part this year. Among them is previous Audi Victoria Week winner, Geoff Boettcher, with his new Reichel/Pugh 51 from South Australia, ‘Secret Mens Business 3.5’.

“Of course you want to win, especially in such tough competition and for such a fantastic prize,” said ‘Boettch’, a strong contender who won the first round of the Championship in 2008.

A strong Division 1 fleet from Melbourne makes their owners feel confident. Those contenders are headed by Michael Hiatt and his Farr 55 ‘Living Doll’. Hiatt’s yacht is just that bit longer than his stable mates in the 50ft range. The smallest is Robert Dates ‘Scarlet Runner’, a Reichel/Pugh 52.

Date has been busy preparing for Audi Victoria Week. “I wanted to be sure we’d be ready for Audi Victoria Week, that’s our main goal this year,” confirmed Date, who put his rivals on notice by breaking the Cock of the Bay race record in late December.

In Division 2, Andrew Saies’ Rolex Sydney Hobart overall winner, ‘Two True’, a new Beneteau First 40 from South Australia will be the boat to beat. Saies finished just outside the trophies in Geelong last year with a former boat, but should have great rivalry this time with ‘Reverie’, Alan Woodward’s Beneteau First 45 from Melbourne, which finished second.

“I’m really excited about bringing my boat to Geelong,” said Saies, adding: “I always enjoy racing against Reverie. Alan and I used to have identical boats and ours beat his usually, but this is the first time we will race our Beneteaus against each other. It should be extremely close racing.”

Division 3 is strongly represented by the two Victorian yachts that finished first and third in 2009; David Ellis’ Borresen BB10 ‘Surprise’ and Peter Jackson’s Beneteau First 31.7 ‘Stitched Up’. Can the Beneteaus be beaten?

Denis Thompson, the Principal Race Officer for Audi Victoria Week confirmed there is a new scoring system in place for the Audi IRC Australian Championship. “The perception was it was easier for the smaller divisions to win, so we have a new formula to calculate the winners of each event this year,” he said.

Without going into the technicalities of the formula, what it does is to reward the competitiveness of the respective divisions. In simple terms, those divisions that have the closest finish times across the board, rather than one or two boats beating the rest of their division by wide time differences, won’t be penalised as they feel they have been in the past.

The new scoring will bring the already intense competition in the grand prix IRC racing division up another octave and the Melbourne competitors are ready to take on their interstate rivals.

Audi Victoria Week