Australian Laser Championships Belmont Results

Five times Australian Champion Tom Burton at Belmont

The Australian Laser Championships at Belmont 16ft Sailing Club concluded on 4th January. With 195 entries from 12 countries and every state and territory in Australia the event was hotly contested.

Winds were lighter than normal and mostly in the range of 9 to 12 knots from the ESE to ENE. 11 of the scheduled 12 races were completed with one race lost to light and variable winds on Day 5.

The Laser Standard winner was Tom Burton (NSW) who is the ISAF number one ranked Laser Sailor and now five times winner of the National cube. Tom was pushed by ISAF number two ranked Mathew Wearn (WA). Third was Luke Elliott also from WA. These three dominated the Standard fleet and the results were finalised before the last two races. Full results for the Standards are HERE.

The results in the Radials went down to wire with World Youth Radial Champion Conor Nicholas (WA) just edging out Finn Alexander (NSW) with a win in the final race of the series. Finn, who held a small lead going into the last day, had a costly Rule 42 penalty 100 metres from the finish of race 10 leaving the result open to last race which Conor won. Brody Riley (VIC) was a comfortable 3rd followed by Manami Doi from Japan. Manami was the first woman just one point ahead of Ashley Stoddart (QLD). The full Radial Gold Fleet results are HERE.

The 4.7’s were dominated all week by young WA sailor Rome Featherstone. Rome had the series wrapped up before the last day and won from fellow WA sailor Hayden Coote and Jack Littlechild from NSW. The final results of the 4.7’s are HERE.

The library of photos of the event are linked HERE. All documents and information is at the dedicated event web site HERE.

The next Laser Australian Championship will be held from the Adelaide Sailing Club between 27th December 2016 and 4th January 2017. There is a Vimeo video on the South Australia 2017 titles HERE.