1:21 AM Tue 9 Mar 2010 GMT
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'Audi Sydney Harbour regatta 2010 Prize Giving: Mr Robert Alpe, owner of Indulgence, Dragon Class wins the Audi A4 Avant'
Andrea Francolini / Audi ©
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The Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta has come to conclusion for another year with Robert Alpe, skipper of "Indulgence" (Aus 207) being announced as the overall winning boat and walking away with a brand new Audi A4 Avant valued at over $60,000 as his major prize.
The Regatta held on Sydney Harbour on March 6 and 7 saw over 300 boats compete with over 3,000 sailors in 22 different divisions including One-Design, Performance Handicap rated yachts (spinnaker and non-spinnaker) and International Rule Class rated yachts.
Having never sailed together previously, Alpe's newly formed crew included helmsman Andrew York, Anthony Armstrong and Craig Young who sailed with Alpe on the Sunday.
Alpe's "Indulgence" is an International Dragon, the largest design keel boat class available and is 80 years old. The key to the Dragon's enduring appeal lies in the careful development of its rig. Its well balanced sail plan makes boat handling easy for lightweights, while a controlled process of development has produced one of the most flexible and controllable rigs of any racing boat
"As a newly formed team competing together, we did brilliantly to finish first in our division - given Craig Young fell overboard and was retrieved within 60 seconds and we blew out our spinnaker in the first race on Sunday, the boys really worked as a team and rallied together to ensure we were ready to go for the second race and not lose our current place," said Alpe.
"Winning the Audi is a fantastic way to top off what has been a brilliant weekend; the Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta is truly a spectacular event put on by Audi and Middle Harbour Yacht Club, it brings together sailors from all classes of boats and builds comradely between local and interstate competitors," Alpe added.
Audi's Motorsport Ambassador and two-times former Super Touring Car Champion, Brad Jones, put two crew members from the 22 divisional winners through their paces in Audi's TTRS quattro high performance sports coupe.
Every boat had two chances to win, and had to demonstrate their prowess and accuracy on the tight slalom course. The most-consistent driver overall was then announced the winner of the Audi Final Challenge and the new Audi A4 Avant.
"When we said fastest time around the slalom course we should have realised for yachties it was like waving a red flag to a bull - we had two cars with clutches burnt out and smoke pouring from under the engines, next year I think Audi will be using automatic cars instead of manual ones!" said Martin Hill, Commodore, Middle Harbour Yacht Club.
The overall prize, the Audi A4 Avant is the most successful premium station wagon of its class offers excellent performance, versatility, typically high Audi build quality and a range of storage solutions in its large, flexible load-carrying area.
With exciting and dynamic design, the Audi A4 Avant is larger, lighter and more fuel efficient that its predecessor.
The aerodynamic roofline lends the vehicle a sleek, coupe-like silhouette, while the rear design focuses on width, with powerful, horizontal lines. The new headlight design is proving extremely popular and distinctive and the Avant comes with daytime running lights as a standard feature.
The ASHR major prize vehicle has a dynamic 1.8 TFSI engine with 118 kilowatts of power, yet it remains very economical with consumption of just 7.4 litres/100km.
For further information on the Audi A4 Avant log onto
www.audi.com.au
and for information on the Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta log onto
www.sydneyharbourregatta.com
by ASHR media
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