Contenders travel to France

Contender sailors

(Kneeling) Joey Randall, Matt Triglone

(Standing) Neil Whittaker, Mark Bulka, Scotty Munro, John "Crazy" McLean, Lindsay Irwin, Sammy Reid, Andrew Barrett, Andre Webster, Steve Young, Jeff Owen and Johnny Lindholm

13 Aussies travelled over to France for the 2019 Contender Worlds held at the French National Sailing Training Centre in Quiberon, in Brittany.

The Pre-World event attracted 60 boats. They had 8 races in good conditions. Mark Bulka took out the Nationals with 6 bullets, a 3rd and not having to sail the last race.

So, of the Aussies who sailed the Nationals:

Bulka - 1

Andre - 7

Johnny - 8

Sammy - 16

Lindsay 17

Jeff - 20

Steve - 39

Crazy - 41

Matt - 45

Andrew - 51

Neil - 59

The Worlds had a line-up of 127 boats, and the conditions were a whole different story. Whilst the location was beautiful, the wind was terrible!! Light winds plagued the event, and only 7 of the scheduled 10 races were sailed. On day 1, we were on the water until 8.30pm trying to complete the day's scheduled sailing. One race on day 2 and no racing day 3 due to no wind. This left event organisers to split the fleets based only on 3 sailed races, and no drops.

The final 2 days were in light but sailable conditions.

One of the highlights had to be seeing Steve Young first around the top mark in the last Silver Fleet race - just awesome!

Overall, the lightweights dominated the event, with Max Billerberck from Germany taking the title ahead of Graham Scott (UK) in second and Soren Dulong (Denmark) in third.

Of the Aussies, we placed:

Bulka - 15

Andre - 41

Johnny - 47

Joey - 56

Jeff - 58

Lindsay - 59

Sammy - 67 (3rd in Silver fleet)

Scotty - 71

Steve - 84

Crazy - 89

Matt - 94

Neil - 115

Andrew - 120

Next Worlds - Medemblik