Regatta challenge on way to world stage

THREE young Optimist dinghy sailors from Sandy Bay Sailing Club chosen to represent Australia overseas are among a list of champions contesting this weekend’s Crown Series Bellerive Regatta on the River Derwent.

Eddie Reid, 13, a close runner-up to a Sydney sailor in the 2019 Optimist Australian championship in Hobart last month, has been included in the Australian senior for team for the Optimist championships in Antigua in July.

Ed Broadby and Adelaide O’Donoghue, both 12, are in the senior team to contest the Asian and Oceanic championships at Al Musannah Sports City, near Muscat, Oman, in September.

In the Optimist nationals Broadby finished 17th and O’Donoghue 26th and second female in the huge open championship fleet of 138.

Broadby and O’Donoghue will contest the Optimist class at the Crown Series Bellerive Regatta today and tomorrow, while Reid will move into a twohanded class.

He is helming a highperformance 29er skiff with his crew Archer Ibbott, a runner-up in the 2019 International Cadet Nationals. Cadet champions Hugo Allison and James Gough, also from Sandy Bay, head a strong line-up of the class as they continue their preparation to represent Australia at the Cadet Worlds in Poland later this year.

The Crown Series Bellerive Regatta began last evening with a twilight race for 60 racing and cruising keelboats.

Today the keelboats will be joined by off-the-beach dinghies and catamarans, International Dragons and SB20 sports boats which will be racing for their state championship.

In the SB20s, prominent yachtswoman Jacinta Cooper is taking her daughters Jorja, aged 15, and Indy, 12, along with Seb Gadsby, 15, racing in her new sports boat, Obi Kenobi. The opposition will include Jacinta’s husband, Brett, the present Australian champion in the SB20s.

“We’re just out for fun and to take the young ones out for a sail,” Jacinta said yesterday.