Fahan success

A SOUTHERN Tasmanian school will be one of six teams to represent Australia in international competition later this month.

The Fahan School sailing team competed successfully against 26 other schools nationally in championships held in Perth in July to gain a place in the six-boat team representing Australia in the Australia vs New Zealand Team Sailing Interdominion.

The Sandringham Yacht Club in Victoria will host the 2017 Interdominion School Team Sailing Championships and the Pacific Rim School Team Championships from September 22-26.

The Fahan team comprises Chloe Abel, Abbey Calvert, Hilary Clifford, Meg Goodfellow, Emily Nicholson, Amy Potter and Lily Zeeman with Laura Cooper joining the Interdominion team as Hilary Clifford is unavailable. The team manager is Felicity Allison and Elliott Noye is coach.

Australia and New Zealand will each field three mixed and three female teams in the Interdominion, which will be sailed in the highly competitive and attractive Pacer sailing dinghy.

The Pacer, designed by renowned UK naval architect Jack Holt, is a 3.8m one-design sloop rigged dinghy with a spinnaker capable of high planing speeds. It was first sailed in England in the 1970s with fleets now in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand.

The Fahan team will be training intensively over the next three weeks in Yachting Tasmania’s fleet of Pacers based at the Sandy Bay Sailing Club in Hobart.