Mooloolaba SB3 Dart skipper heading for Geelong

8:57 PM Tue 2 Dec 2008 GMT

'SB3 fleet' Richard Langdon /Ocean Images &copy Click Here to view large photo

Mooloolaba SB3 Dart skipper Kai Timm will revise his tactical one-design tactical racing strategy before he packs his sea bag and heads to Geelong to contest the 2009 Australian championship.The talented skipper has reason to be confident of being on the pace after his Silver Medal result in the open Queensland fleet racing championship on Brisbane's Moreton Bay last weekend.

However he will continue to step up his training schedule on the open ocean waters off Mooloolaba over the next nine weeks to ensure that his high performance crew including his Noosa River sailing mate and Australian Blazer 23 match racing champion Chris Annear are race ready to compete against the Nations best during the Skandia Geelong Race Week over the Australia Day Weekend.

Skipper Kai Timm and his Ocean's 11 crew need to find a more consistent all angle sailing speed and the pace to erase seven penalty points which was the difference between winning the Gold Medal won by rival New South Wales skipper Warwick Heath helming Sarah Palin Safaris.

Heath won only two heats but finished second in five other exciting races while the Ocean's 11 crew completed the series with a 3-3-4-4-1-2-3-2.

There was only a marginal difference in the overall elapsed course times but as both Warwick Heath and Kai Timm know that you only need to have a few centimetres of the bow in front at the finish to win championships in this strict one-design class.

The search for those critical centimetres will become the focus of their training and fleet racing in the Mooloolaba Dinghy Club events before they make the long road trip to Geelong for the Australian title series and the selection races for the 2009 World championship in Portugal next September.

Teenage Sunshine Coast skipper Levi Curtis also showed he had the tactical maturity to test his personal skill against his more experienced older rivals when his Tasqua Youth crew shared the lead with Warwick Heath and Joe Akacich (Claaka) after the opening four heats.

His final six races of 6-4-3-5-6-5 fell four points short of beating Claaka for the Bronze medal.
Sunshine Coast Hobie 16 crews were handed a lesson of sailing in the fast lane when the Brisbane Husband and Wife crew of Peter and Juliette Bates won five heats of their series to clinch the 2008 Sail Brisbane Gold Medal ahead of former Australian champion Andrew Keag and sailing partner Karen Warneke.

Team Noosa's Queensland open Olympic Laser champion Ryan Palk did very little harm to his career ranking with fifth and the best Australian result against a very competitive fleet which included International champions Matt Coutts (New Zealand), Matias del Solar (Chile), Javier Hernandez (Spain) and Fredrik Westman of Finland.

Palk opened the series with a disqualification when he was 'Blown Out' for a premature start but then produced his trade-mark style of controlled aggression and skill to outpace the fleet in race 8 which basically clinched a deserved result as the best Australian in a fleet which included former Australian champions Brendan Casey, Brad Taylor and Peter Conde.

by Ian Grant

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Mooloolaba SB3 Dart skipper heading for Geelong

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