by Craig Heydon
Australia’s leading youth sailors will hit the waters of Botany Bay in Sydney later this week to contest the 2011 OAMPS Insurance Brokers Australian Youth Championship.
More than 160 crews will take part in Australia’s leading youth sailing regatta with the 2011 event to be held at Georges River 16ft Sailing Club from January 6 to 10.
The 2011 OAMPS Insurance Brokers Australian Youth Championship will have an international feel with nine countries represented.
Australian sailors make up the bulk of the entries but they won’t have it all their own way with crews traveling from Japan, Great Britain, Russia, New Caledonia, France, Cook Islands, Singapore and New Zealand to take part in the regatta.
Early registration begins on Wednesday, 5 January, with a practice race and welcome function scheduled for the following day before four days of racing begins on Friday.
The Australian crews will be competing for a position on the Australian Youth Sailing Team to take part in the 2011 ISAF World Youth Sailing Championship that will be held in Croatia in June.
Australia has a strong history at the ISAF World Youth Sailing Championship and this continued in 2010 with the open multihull crew of Chase Lurati and Paul Darmanin winning Gold in Turkey.
Racing at the 2011 OAMPS Insurance Brokers Australian Youth Championship will take place in six classes including boys and girls Laser Radials, Laser 4.7, and windsurfers aboard the Techno 293.
There will also be racing for boys in the Laser Standard, open in the Multihull, aboard the Hobie 16, and boys, girls and open in the 420 and 29er classes.
Those who aren’t able to attend the regatta in person will be able to follow the action at home with live tracking and a live event blog available throughout the four days of racing.
The live tracking will be available through the event website, www.youthchamps.org.au, and is the same system that was successfully used in the recent 2010 Sail Down Under Series which finished with Sail Melbourne just before Christmas.
The live event blog will allow those at home, and with internet access at the club, to stay up to date with all the action from the water.
The 2011 OAMPS Insurance Brokers Australian Youth Championship is also a part of the new Youth Sailing Grand Prix that began last week with a number of class Australian Championships.
The Youth Sailing Grand Prix has been designed to unearth and reward Australia’s leading youth sailors across 2011 with cash prizes available for the first time in a Yachting Australia organized youth series.
For more information on the 2011 OAMPS Insurance Brokers Australian Youth Championship visit www.youthchamps.org.au
