The Australian 18 Footers League’s 91st continuous season of 18ft skiff racing on Sydney Harbour will commence next Sunday (20 October) when the club conducts Race 1 of the six-race Sixt Spring Championship.
With a likely fleet of seventeen of the world’s best 18 footer teams expected to face the starter during the season, the Sixt Sprint Championship will provide a great spectacle for supporters as well as an excellent opportunity for the younger and newer teams to set themselves up for the major championships that follow.
Highlights of the 2024-25 summer season are the League’s 90th birthday celebrations over three-days from Friday 31 January to Sunday 2 February, the return of the Australian Championship to Brisbane for the first time in 35 years, and the 76th J.J. Giltinan World Championship on Sydney Harbour from 8-16 March 2025.
It should be an exciting local, interstate and international racing program to satisfy all 18 footer competitors and spectators.
The season-opening Sixt sprint series will include last season’s champion team of Jacob Marks, Alex Marinelli and Matt Doyle, who will defend their title in the Sixt-sponsored skiff, after moving from last season’s The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines.
Last year’s runner-up and current JJ Giltinan world champion, the Yandoo team will again have the experienced John ‘Woody’ Winning, Fang Warren and Lewis Brake on board as it attempts to reverse the 2023 result.
Sixt and Yandoo will be under pressure from three of last year’s top-5 teams, Balmain (Henry Larkings), Smeg (Nathan McNamara) and Shaw and Partners Financial Services (Emma Rankin) and top-10 teams Finport Finance (Keagan York), Burrawang-Young Henrys (Simon Nearn) and Vaikobi (Kirk Mitchell).
Sixt team manager Alex Marinelli is looking forward to the move and prospect of defending the title won last year in The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines.
“We’re looking forward to the challenge of retaining the title we won last year but will be without our skipper Jacob Marks for Race 1 as he is presently in the middle of his HSC exams at college.”
“The team worked well together last season and the stability of having it remain the same for 2024-25 is important as we are looking to get better ‘scratch’ results at all the championships.”
“We are really keen to work with our new sponsor, Sixt, and get the best possible results we can for the company.”
Adding to the fleet this season is a new hull for The Kitchen Maker team of Lachlan Steel, Jerome Watts and Darcy McCracken. Steel has been sailing in the 18s for four seasons and the new boat this year will give him and his team their best opportunity for success.
It is also the fourteenth consecutive year of a sponsor-partnership between the McKavanagh family’s The Kitchen Maker and the Australian 18 Footers League.
The eight-race NSW Championship, from 1-22 December, will follow the Sixt Spring Championship series before the racing on Sydney Harbour goes into a three-week break over Christmas and the New Year.
The return of major 18 footer championship racing to Brisbane, the Australian Championship 18-20 January, is a great result for the northern state and a just reward for the efforts of Dave Hayter and the results of his team in recent JJ Giltinan world championship regattas on Sydney Harbour.
90th anniversary celebrations announced by the League include a ‘Super Sprint Series’ for the Balmain Cup, a ‘Skiff Sydney Harbour Marathon’ and the ‘Queen of the Waves’ race, which will complete the celebrations on Sunday, 2 February.
Following the German Black Knight victory at the recent international regatta at Lake Garda, Italy, the team’s return to Sydney for the 2025 JJ Giltinan Championship promises to make it a brilliant finale to an action-packed season of high-tech, high speed 18ft skiff racing.
The Australian 18 Footers League’s spectator ferry will follow the racing throughout the entire season, as it has done over the club’s 90-year history, and will leave Double Bay Public Wharf at 2pm next Sunday. Don’t miss it!
Image: Balmain, one of the big chances for victory in the 2024 Spring Championship (SailMedia)