| FREMANTLE, AUS-(14-11-2002) Celebrity sailors expected to be among the first at the top mark at the Grolsch International 505 World championships in Fremantle Australia will be five time world champion Krister Bergstrom from Sweden and fresh from “Orm”, Swedens’s bid for the America’s Cup, champion crew Johan Barne, with skipper Tom Swift heading here from Antigua, from a stint on a Swan 56.. From the USA, Howie Hamlin, current 18 ft skiff world champ and former world 505 champ. From the UK, Ian Pinnell, world champ in Fireball, Enterprise and several times UK 505 champ and
Ian Barker, former 505 world champ and Olympic Silver Medallist, 49-er.
The Australian contingent includes dual world 505 champion, 18 ft skiff world champion, 49er Olympic rep and world champion Chris Nicholson from Lake Macquarie NSW, defending Australian champion Sandy Higgins from South Australia and West Australian giant killer Peter Chappell, who will be racing in one of the newly manufactured high tech pre-preg carbon honeycomb “Fremantle 505’s”, fully re-engineered and built in Perth in the last year. Pip Pearson who crewed for the legendary Paul Elvstrom at the worlds in 1966 will also be putting his tactics to the test.
This is just a small selection from the hundred plus 505’s from Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Zimbabwe, expected to be on the start line, here in Fremantle, 3rd to 14th December. The Australian National championships will be held as the pre Worlds warm up event from 3rd to 6th December. The competition will undoubtedly be hot.
505 sailors are not slow to react when faced with challenges of a different kind. Eight of the boys from USA clocked up 2000 miles on a return trip when they towed their boats to Vancouver to ship them from there, to avoid a dock workers strike on the West Coast.
The Fremantle Doctor blows hard in December and this will be the first 505 world championship with the boats carrying the new large kites, and there should be action aplenty,
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