Wot Chicks Next Challenge
Australia's World ranked Wot Chicks will place their outstanding one-design match racing reputation on the line when they contest the Americas Cup style State Championship regatta off Mooloolaba Beach starting on Friday.
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The all female crew from the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club (Sydney) are sponsored by 2008 Queenslander of the Year Graeme Wood.
They are continuing to develop into a very successful combination and are currently ranked third in the world behind the French crew helmed by Claire Leroy and the Lotte Pedersen Medgaard helmed team from Denmark.
Wot Chicks is skippered by the exceptionally talented Katie Spithill the younger sister of Americas Cup helmsman James Spithill and naturally she has formulated similar attitude into her personal boat on boat match racing technique.
Her crew have also proved to be tenacious competitors and they will continue to produce this successful tactical racing strategy when the sails are tensioned to win the inaugural Audi Centre Sunshine Coast Queensland championship trophy.
They will have the edge in terms of match racing skills having regularly tested their technique and strategy against the World's best but this alone will not assure them of the Gold Medal when they 'lock horns' in the tactical bull-ring against a number of Australia's best male match racing crews including those skippered by the Sunshine Coasts Audi Australian IRC champions Sean O'Rourke and Kai Timm.
Both Sean O'Rourke and Kai Timm possess a good understanding of the local wind and sea conditions and while this will provide a minor advantage they will still have to race super smart on the course against a high quality fleet of 14 teams.
Sure Wot Chicks deserve to be ranked as the top title contender, however they are yet to experience match racing in the OeanBuro fleet of high performance International Dart SB3 Sports boats.
This regatta will present a totally different challenge for the Wot Chicks racing team but their recent form and the intense training schedule in preparation for the Match Cup in Sweden followed by major regattas in Europe and the 2008 World Championship in Newport USA suggests they will be the pacesetters in this high profile Queensland Championship.
by Ian Grant 
Thirroul, NSW
