| MOOLLOOLABA, AUSTRALIA-(15-7-2004) High profile international yachtsmen Australian John Bertrand and American Dennis Conners will contest this weekend’s ACE Etchells Pre-Worlds Regatta #2 at Mooloolaba on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – and lend their support to a local charity.
The two-day regatta to be sailed on the same course as the ACE Etchells World Championship 2004 later this month, is expected to attract 40 of the 85 crews entered for the Worlds.
Conner, best known as a former America’s Cup skipper, is aiming to become only the second yachtsmen ever to win three Etchells World Championship, while Bertrand, who beat Conner in their famous America’s Cup encounter at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1983, is making a concerted effort to win his first Etchells World title.
Tough rivals on the race-track, the Conner and Bertrand will join forces this coming Saturday afternoon at Mooloolaba Yacht Club to sign a Boxing Kangaroo Flag to be presented to Raylene Boyle, the Olympic sprinter who is patron of Bloomhill, a prominent Sunshine Coast charity organisation which, since 1979, has raised funds to provide support or cancer sufferers, their families and friends.
Bloomhill will use the signed flag during their major fund-raising activity at the Corbould Park race meeting on Sunday, 18 July.
Late entries from prominent Victorian yachtsmen Grant Wharington and Noel Drennan have lifted to 85 the entries for the ACE Etchells World Championship 2004, with racing off Mooloolaba from 1-8 August. However, former World Champion Iain Murray has withdrawn from the series.
|
