Alegria to contest Skandia Geelong Week
'Alegria downwind at speed. 2008 Audi Hamilton Island Race Week'
Crosbie Lorimer
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Rod Jones, the 2007 Audi Australian IRC class ocean racing champion, has nominated his impressive new Archambault A40 CR Alegria for the Rolex Regatta and the Skandia Geelong Race Week.
These high profile regattas attract Australia's best ocean racing sailors and the Sunshine Coast crew will not be out of their depth when the sails are tensioned for the prestigious Rolex Trophy in mid December followed by the popular Skandia Geelong Race Week in late January.
The Sunshine Coast helmsman and his equally skilled crew who swept all before them to win the important National title with the smaller Aurchambault A35 Alegria which also won the Queensland Championship Gold Cup has plans to test the speed of the new A40 sloop in the Rolex Regatta before heading to Geelong for the first leg of the 2009 Audi Australian championship.
Skipper Rod Jones and the Alegria crew raised some eyebrows last month during the highly competitive Audi Hamilton Island Race Week when they were rolled for their class championship in the final race after a thrilling match race against the high performance New South Wales combination of Ray Harris and tactician Michael Spies in Honeysuckle.
This was a highly commendable performance to win the Silver Medal at the 25th anniversary regatta considering that Alegria was contesting her first serious series against some of Australia's best ocean sailing tacticians including former Rolex Sydney-Hobart race winner Michael Spies of Sydney.
Spies winner of previous class championships at Hamilton Island was forced to 'dig deep' and produce a tactical fight back when the Sunshine Coast crew led the series into the final 23n/ml Molle-Daydream Island race.
Both crews were evenly matched in the decider however previous longer race results favoured the Honeysuckle crew after they won the 8 hour 47 minute 32 second Hayman Island Classic with a time correction advantage of just over 5 minutes.
However the Alegria crew expressed their skill and fighting spirit to force the experienced Honeysuckle team to fight all the way when the race result and the championship hung in the balance as the crews lowered the spinnakers for the long windward slog from North Molle Island to the finish in Dent Passage.
The Honeysuckle crew proved to be the star performers limiting their sailing time in the fast flowing current while Alegria was disadvantaged with a fading wind which allowed the tactically well sailed Honeysuckle to clinch the series with a runaway 28 minute 18 second margin.
Experience of racing with and against the current was the deciding factor however the Alegria crew were far from disgraced with their Silver Medal result confirming that they remain among the best crews in Australia.
Their crew skills and the development of boat-speed will improve with more time on the deck when Beijing Olympic coach Adrian Finglas returns from China.
Finglas promises to improve Algeria's speed and have her on the pace when she contests the Rolex Trophy and the more important first regatta of the 2009 Audi Australian IRC championship in Geelong.
by Ian Grant 
Port Macquarie, NSW
