Surprise winner

Kiwi’s Win Australian 49er National Championship

New Zealanders Jake Bartrom and Craig Prentice have taken out the 49er Australian National Championships which concluded on Saturday in Melbourne. A very satisfying win for the pair having beaten Australian hot shot in the 49er and winner of the Sydney International Regatta and Sail Melbourne, Nathan Outtenridge.

“We were pleased with the overall improvement we made during the three Australian regattas,” says Craig Prentice. “We had rig trouble at Sail Melbourne which we sorted out towards the end, and then finished the regatta pretty well.” The pair then went on to record three out of six race wins at the National Championship giving them a six point winning margin over second placed Lehman and Elliott.

The thee day regatta was hampered on the second day of competition by two metre swells restricting racing down to two races rather than the scheduled four. Racing started on Saturday, the final day of the regatta, but was abandoned due to lack of wind. Bartrom and Prentice were leading the heat on Saturday when racing was called off, and sitting convincingly at the top of the leader board, the kiwi’s took out the Championship.

Results:

Pos	Helm	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Tot
1	Jake Bartrom	Craig Prentice	1	4	2	1	1	[8.0]	9
2	Clynton Wade Lehman	Tai Elliott	3	5	[9.0]	2	2	3	15
3	Nathan Outtenidge	Ben Austin	[11.0]	2	1	4	8	1	16
4	Nigel Littlewood	Scott Babbage	4	1	[8.0]	5	6	5	21
5	Euan McNicol	Steve Jarvin	2	[19.0F]	4	6	9	2	23
6	Kenjiro Todoroki	Kenji Takahashi	[8.0]	3	3	7	7	4	24
7	Will Phillips	Jon Newman	6	[9.0]	5	3	3	7	24
8	David O'Connor	Iain Jensen	[19.0F]	8	7	8	4	6	33
9	Paul Newman	Chris Maxted	[10.0]	7	6	10	5	9	37
10	Tom Clout	Marcus Ashley Jones	5	6	10	9	[19.0F]	19.0C	49
11	Darren McKavanagh	Cameron McDonald	9	10	12	[13.0]	10	11	52
12	David Lorimer	Scott Munro	12	11	13	[14.0]	12	10	58
13	Tom Watson	Ollie McKeon	[19.0F]	19.0F	11	12	13	19.0C	74
14	Scott Cunningham	Michael Hughes	13	[19.0F]	19.0F	16	11	19.0C	78
15	Andrew Griffits	Mark Griffits	[19.0C]	19.0C	14	11	19.0F	19.0F	82