With no less than 4 bullets on 7 sailed races, discarding a 6 as a worse score, Van Kerckhof brothers (10 points) do hold a strong lead at 2017 Australian Titles sailed at Port Melbourne Yacht Club, 13 points ahead NZL Olivia Mackay & Micah Wilkinson, and 20+ points ahead of a very tight group at 3rd, 4th & 5th places.
All pictures © Alex McKinnon
Talented Viper sailors, Daniel & Nathan Van Kerckhof easily jumped to bigger C2 boat, with pretty good results at the moment, and it seems the Bronze they recently got at Viper Worlds hosted by Royal Geelong Yacht Club (Victoria, AUS) was a kind of warm up for F18 Australian National Titles…
It is then pretty interesting to see NZL youth mixed team of Olivia Mackay and Micah Wilkinson, who finished 2nd at last Sailing World Cup final sailed on Nacra 17 in the very same waters, to be performing a quite regular way, getting places from 2 to 7, and so being ranked 2nd overall on provisional results.
Slightly behind, there is a tense fight between three teams to get Bronze, Colby-Webb, Burvill-Gibson & Brewin-Williams, being respectively ranked 3rd, 4th and 5th with 31, 32 & 33 points…
More generally, it is to stress AUS 2017 Nationals already are a complete success, considering either the largest participation ever, mixing from 15 to 71 year old teams, or the increasing average skill level of the fleet.
More information at www.sail-world.com/151382.
Superb pictures by Alex McKinnon at https://www.facebook.com/AustF18Cat/photos/