Strong Australian Team to contest World University Championship for Match Racing

The 16 member Australian team consists of representatives from Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, and has two male teams skippered by Sam Gilmour (WA) and Jay Griffin (NSW), and two female teams skippered by Jessica Hansen (QLD) and Tara McCall (NSW).

 

For both Jessica and Tara this event will be their first overseas match racing regatta at the helm. Jessica is the current Australian Women’s Match Racing Champion and with her crew of Natalie Greentree (NSW) and sisters Sasha and Jaime Ryan (QLD) will be looking to post a solid result at the event.

 

Tara McCall has most recently been competing on the domestic match racing circuit. Along with one of her crew for this event, Aurora Paterson (NSW), Tara competed at the 2011 World University Games in the 470 and will be joining forces with Katie Webb and Carla Sexton to form an all New South Wales crew for the match racing component.

 

Sam Gilmour from Western Australia skippers one of the two men’s teams and heads into the event off the back of a fifth place at the recent Governor’s Cup in California. Sam leads a young, but by no means inexperienced, team of Steven Thomas, who was the 2008 and 2009 29er World Champion, Chris Smith and Alistair Marchesi from the University of Western Australia.

 

Jay Griffin will have a lot of insight into one of his competitor’s tactics having just crewed for Sam Gilmour at the Governor’s Cup. Jay’s team of Jack Dawson (NSW), Jack Breislin (NSW) and Jackson Cranfield (NSW) are also a young team with plenty of match racing regatta experience behind them.

 

Yachting Australia would like to wish all of the teams representing Australia at the World University Championships for Match Racing the best of luck for the event.