That’s right, the Victoria Harbour Schools Sailing Series this year packed 102 races into two school days to select Victoria’s best secondary school sailing team.

And the winner in the final race of the series, by just one point, and determined by the last two boats in the last race was St Bedes over last year’s winners Haileybury.

St Bedes will go on to represent Victoria at the Nationals in July in Adelaide.

The eighteen schools selected for the State Championship included past multiple winners St Leonards and new entrants including Melbourne Grammar, Brighton Grammar and new sailors including SEDA (a vocational schools program in aquatics with participants from Life Saving Swimming and Sailing) Victoria Harbour at Docklands again provided a great venue for the regatta. It was a great sight as students, their coaches, club officials, parents and the public aboard the refurbished Sydney ferry, Lady Cutler, cheered their teams at close quarters. And it was a great location for the promotion of sailing as the three fleets of six boats with their team-based coloured sails kept the action going - right – in front of the office windows of the Melbourne business district and the pedestrians of the Docklands precinct.

The high speed action for the two days was coordinated by Andy Hunting, a past successful schools teams sailor. It was Andy’s great organising skills together with a fleet of 18 YV Pacers from the Boat Shed that enabled quick changeovers and continuous racing in a round-robin format from 10am to 4pm each day. The breezes helped too, a light northerly for the first day and even lighter southerly for the Friday.

The regatta was organised by Yachting Victoria and hosted by the quickly developing Docklands Yacht Club who are working towards a greater future role in hosting teams racing regattas. It enjoyed the support of Yachting Victoria’s team from the Boat Shed, headed by Rod Austin, and a star studded team of YV’s Race officials headed by international race umpire, Bill Bell.

The Victoria Harbour Schools Sailing Championship is in its third year and is sponsored by Lend Lease and the City of Melbourne. This year’s event certainly built on its already successful reputation as a great venue for presenting sailing to the public. Yachting Victoria is working to build the success of schools teams racing in Victoria even further with a number of clubs now offering regular weekly coaching and competition programs
for local schools.

www.yachtingvictoria.com.au/str