King of Docklands set to make a Splash
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12:44 AM Tue 18 Nov 2008 GMT
Last Friday the Skandia Geelong Week team unveiled the program for the 2009 Skandia Geelong Week, including the Docklands Invitational and the King of Docklands series. It seems the 2009 King of Docklands event will make a serious splash.
The 2008 King of Docklands SB3's series was held on Victoria Harbour at Melbourne's Docklands. The twilight event was sailed after the Dockland Invitational fleet reported from Port Phillip Bay.
It was a high adrenalin competition on the 300 by 150 metre harbour. The winning team was Laser World Champion and World Number One Tom Slingsby, 49er World Champion Nathan Outteridge, 470 World Champion Nathan Wilmot and Radial National Champion Sarah Blanck. The four sailors donated their prize, a $17,500 zero emission Vectrix electric yacht, to the Australian Paralympic team.
This year, the format of the event has changed. 'The Divisional winners at Skandia Geelong Week, all 25 divisional winners, will be given an invitation to race in the King of the Docklands on a level playing field for ultimate bragging rights," Skandia Geelong Week coordinator Doug Jarvis said.
Entrants will have come from a wide mixture ofsailing backgrounds, the 2008 winners from the Sydney 38 Nationals, the Cadets , the IRC Grand Prix, skiffs, multihulls, the SB3 and the Cruising without Spinnaker will be invited to compete against winners from all divisions of the competition.
Jarvis said the prize for the King of Docklands series will be announced in the coming weeks, and its size will surprise many in the sport.
'All we can say to those crews at the moment is that it's going to be a significant prize and there will be a lot of pressure on them.
'It's potentially a perpetual thing and the only way to have a crack at the King of the Docklands is to win your division at the Geelong Week,' he said.
A new twist in the series will allow skippers from the 2008 series to change their crews. They will select from sailors who raced in their 2008 division. Will be interesting to see, just how the crews assemble because there will be quite a lot at stake.
'It's really exciting, especially in tough times because it just shows a number of people's commitment to what they are doing regardless of the economic situation.
I think that's a really good sign for our sport because you've got AFL teams running around without proper sponsors, and we are going to put a figure on the racetrack that are going to rival some of those jumper sponsorships,' Jarvis said.
And the prizes. watch this space.
by Rob Kothe
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