Kiel Week 2009 - Australian crews in Germany

8:38 PM Sun 21 Jun 2009 GMT

'Lucinda, Whitty (1989) ASDS/RSYS' Herman Hell Kiel Week 2009 Click Here to view large photo

Day one of racing at round six of the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Kiel, Germany, delivered a strong start for a number of the Australian crews.

Difficult conditions including thunderstorms followed by a lack of wind allowed limited racing in all Olympic class fleets.

The Australian Sailing Development Squad's Women Match Racing crews had their first taste of the new Elliott 6 metres with the four Australian teams competing in a strong 21 crew fleet.

Nicky Souter, Jess Eastwell and Olivia Price had a great day on the water, sailing in six flights for five victories and now skip the next round to move straight through to the quarter finals.

'We were quite pleased with how we sailed today,' said Souter. 'The acceleration of the boats was surprising but our experience in the older Elliotts in Australia certainly helped out, these boats feel very light so we need to work on our trimming to take full advantage of the boats acceleration.'

The Women's Match Racing entries were split into three groups with Lucinda Whitty's crew finishing the day fourth in group B while in group C Katie Spitthill's and Amanda Scrivenor's crews didn't get any racing in due to the light wind.

In the 470 men's fleet Sam Kivel and Will Ryan were the leading Australian crew and sit in 15th place after a 12th and seventh in the day's two races.

Shane Hughes and Felix Paterson are in 27th and Alexander and Patrick Conway are in 39th.

The ASDS women's 470 crew of Stacey Omay and Chelsea Hall had a good day with a sixth and 12th placing before the third race was abandoned, leaving them in eighth overall.

Current Youth World Champion Gabrielle King started her 2009 European campaign underway in great fashion, sitting in fifth place in the Laser Radial fleet with an eighth and third, including beating 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Gold medalist Anna Tunnicliffe in the day's first race.

In the Laser fleet Ashley Brunning had a mixed day with a 32nd and fifth leaving him in 45th overall, ahead of Tom Burton in 63rd and Ryan Hannan in 105th.

Will and Sam Phillips were Australia's leading 49er crew with the 12th placing including a second in race two, with Euan McNicol and Sam Newton in 21st, David O'Connor and Robert Bell in 27th and Robert Gibbs and James Garnaut in 33rd.

The difficult conditions meant the Finn and Star fleets only completed one race each.

In the Stars, Paul McKenzie and Phil Toth recorded a 15th place and Andrew Landenberger and Simon Reffold a 17th after a particularly bad start. Both places will improve when protest results are updated.

by Craig Heydon