The recent Etchells and VX1 Regattas held at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron (RQYS) was an opportunity for many Australian High Performance and amateur sailors to compete over a three-day event, allowing them to build and maintain their skills in these highly competitive one-design classes. Moreton Bay is set to be the location for 2032 Olympic Sailing, so the more experience these sailors can get, the better!

June 10-12, 2022 proved to be a fantastic weekend of sailing. The VX1 Winter Nationals was well represented with a 19-boat fleet, with boats traveling from South Australia and New South Wales. It was a very early and cold briefing on day one of the regatta. The daily 9:00am start time gave competitors a consistent 12-15 kts from the west on all three days, and made for some very tight competitive racing. The RQYS crew Mack One Racing cleaned up the leaderboard with eight first place wins in the 15-race series.

Master Coach Victor Kovalenko, well-known in Olympic circles as “the Medal Maker,” was on-hand to provide coaching support to one of the VX1 teams. It is always a treat to see Victor at RQYS, as it was to see so many other well-known, high-performance sailors.

The Eastern Course featured the Winter Waterloo Cup, a pop-up regatta organized to accommodate the top class Etchells which were in Queensland to compete in the Mooloolaba event which was unfortunately cancelled due to a dangerous bar. The two-day regatta had a more traditional midday start each day, which suited the three-race-per-day format. The afternoons brought a bit less breeze and varying conditions which tested the fleet of 14.

Congratulations go to RQYS team TAG, skippered by Todd Anderson, which took the win in a nail-biting finish over Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s Lisa Rose, skippered by Martin Hill (AM), and Lucy, skippered by Peter McNeill.

RQYS is now working on preparations for the 2032 Olympics, to be held in Brisbane, Australia, and will be keeping the yachting world updated on progress during this 10-year preparation.