Ajay Rau Reporting from the first leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup-Sail Melbourne

22nd December, Ajay Rau of India finished 8th out of 20 in the Laser Radial Men's and 13th overall out of 36 elite sailors who took part in the first leg of the ISAF World cup Sail Melbourne event which was held from the 16th-21st December. Anna TUNNICLIFFE (USA),Beijing gold medalist sailed superbly to win the overall title and the first leg of the ISAF World Cup in the Radial.Australia and Great Britain finished 2nd and 3rd"I am pleased with this result as this is only my first regatta of the new 2008-2009 season and it is a great position to start off the new season racing at the top most of the time and finishing among the top half of the fleet." Says 20 year old Ajay Rau from India.There were 11 races sailed in which Ajay posted 5 top 5 finishes with a best place of 2nd.He narrowly missed out on a top 5 overall in the men's due to a costly mistake resulting in his worst score of the regatta a Disqualification, jumping the start by a second. ".I was really pumped up and the conditions were perfect for my style of sailing and I was just a second or so too early over the line. This cost me as I was confident of posting another top 5 position…. instead I was awarded 21 points.""I kept making minor adjustments as the regatta progressed, which helped me better my finishing positions. This is my first race after nearly 4 months." This is Ajay's best result at an international regatta tor the year 2008 and this is only his first race of the new 08-09 season. To post this result at the first leg of the ISAF world cup is a huge positive as this is not just any international event but a world event which makes it even more special. My goal next year at this event will be to finish on the podium or even win the ISAF WORLD CUP Sail Melbourne 2009Ajay's next event is the prestigious Australian Championships (Perth) "I am really fired up for this one as this is going to be held at the venue of the 2011 world championships which is one of the principle qualifier events for the 2012 Olympic Games." Merry Christmas!

Results Sail Melbourne-ISAF World Cup-first leg

Overall Results - Laser Radial 36 Sailors

	Name	Sail Num	Bow Num	Club /Cty	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total Points	Net Points
1	TUNNICLIFFE, Anna	2050		USA	3	2	1	1	1	1	7	(10)	8	3	6	43	33	Women
2	KING, Gabrielle	3378		AUS	8	(12)	3	2	2	5	4	4	3	4	8	55	43	Women
3	HAUSCHILDT, Klade	2290		AUS	(20)	9	7	5	4	2	5	1	5	2	11	71	51	Men
4	BREWSTER, Andrea	0478		GBR	6	6	2	3	7	8	2	(13)	7	7	4	65	52	Women
5	MIHELIC, Tina	5		CRO	2	3	4	(10)	6	9	1	9	9	6	7	66	56	Women
6	WINTHER, Sara	4947		NZL	4	8	14	6	15	7	3	2	4	5	(37) OCS	105	68	Women
7	YOUNG, Alison	2440		GBR	5	(16)	16	9	11	3	8	7	1	8	1	85	69	Women
8	OLSSON, Josefin	4931		SWE	1	20	(22)	4	5	10	9	8	13	12	2	106	84	Women
9	COLTMAN, Tim	1619		NZL	10	4	23	12	16	4	10	5	(37) BFD	1	5	127	90	Men
10	JONES, Christopher	1887		AUS	(32)	7	15	7	8	14	6	12	2	11	10	124	92	Men
11	POREBSKI, Josh	1618		NZL	12	19	(20)	11	3	13	11	6	10	9	12	126	106	Men
12	MACFARLANE, Jackson	2267		NZL	11	17	13	14	14	(25)	12	16	12	10	13	157	132	Men
13	RAU, Ajay	4964		IND	22	15	11	17	10	12	13	3	11	(37) BFD	19	170	133	Men

Overall Results - Laser Radial Men - 20 sailors

Pl	Name	Sail Num	Bow Num	Club /Cty	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total Points	Net Points
1	HAUSCHILDT, Klade	2290		AUS	(11)	4	1	1	2	1	1	1	2	2	3	29	18
2	JONES, Christopher	1887		AUS	(18)	3	7	2	3	6	2	5	1	5	2	54	36
3	COLTMAN, Tim	1619		NZL	2	1	13	5	8	2	3	3	(21) BFD	1	1	60	39
4	POREBSKI, Josh	1618		NZL	4	(11)	11	4	1	5	4	4	4	3	4	55	44
5	MACFARLANE, Jackson	2267		NZL	3	9	6	7	7	(11)	5	8	6	4	5	71	60
6	LANGFORD, Rohan	0509		AUS	1	6	4	6	4	3	(13)	11	10	10	7	75	62
7	LANGFORD, Mark	0057		AUS	8	2	3	3	(21) BFD	7	8	6	8	8	12	86	65
8	RAU, Ajay	4964		IND	12	8	5	10	5	4	6	2	5	(21) BFD	10	88	67

Sail Melbourne- World Cup event halfway report

16

RAU, Ajay

4964

IND

(22)

15

11

17

10

12

87

65

Men

After six races,I am 8th in the men's and 16th overall out of 35 Sailors. there are 5 races left to complete this regatta.

ISAF Sailing World Cup Fever Grips Melbourne

Sail Melbourne 2008

Melbourne, Australia

Excitement is mounting and tension is building as organizers get ready to kick off the inaugural first leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup - Sail Melbourne, starting Tuesday 16 December.

The event is sailing’s equivalent to a motor racing Grand Prix or tennis Grand Slam – as part of the inaugural ISAF Sailing World Cup it is one of seven of the most important and biggest Olympic regattas in the world and the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It is only fitting that as Australia tops the national standings in the ISAF World Sailing Rankings yet again, that an event of this magnitude begins in Melbourne. Jetting in for the event are Beijing Olympic gold medallists Malcolm PAGE (AUS), in the Men’s 470 event, and Anna TUNNICLIFFE (US) in the women’s Laser Radial class. PAGE, 36, is firing up for his first major hit out with his new 470 skipper Mat BELCHER (AUS), following the retirement of his gold medal winning partner Nathan WILMOT (AUS). TUNNICLIFFE, one of the superstars of world sailing, is here to begin her campaign for back-to-back gold in London 2012. Australian head coach Victor KOVALENKO is the inaugural Sail Melbourne ambassador and will be wandering the boat park helping out sailors as requested. This event is compulsory for Australian Sailing Team development squad members and is the highlight event on the Victoria Sailing Calendar. The first event of the ISAF Sailing World Cup will be held at Sandringham Yacht Club from 16-21 December. ISAF Sailing World Cup The ISAF Sailing World Cup 2008-2009 consists of the following events: 16-21 Dec 2008 - Sail Melbourne The Asia Pacific Regatta, Melbourne, Australia 25-31 Jan 2009 - Rolex Miami OCR, Miami, USA 4-10 April 2009 - Trofeo SAR Princess Sofia MAPFRE, Palma, Spain 18-24 April 2009 - Semaine Olympique Francaise, Hyeres, France 27-31 May 2009 - Delta Lloyd Regatta, Medemblik, Netherlands 20-28 June 2009 - Kieler Woche, Kiel, Germany 14-19 Sept 2009 - Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta, Weymouth, Great Britain

Sail For Gold -was a no GO!

Melbourne is famous for its winds but the coast hasn't seen such bad weather in a very long time,some people have said its the worst weather they have seen in Melbourne in their life time.3 races were sailed ,I only raced one race finishing 4th. I opted out of the second race as conditions were becoming very nasty.I came back on land and my brad new bottom mast had bet like a banana.It was horrible wet ad extremely windy conditions with huge waves.today most people opted out from the only race sailed,to keep their gear intact for the ISAF WORLD CUP starting on the 16th.I did the same already suffering bottom section damage from just the one race i sailed,so I have transported my boat to the world cup venue.tomorrow Sail Melbourne will Officially begin with all the paper work and measurements.

Sail For GOLD! Count Down is over Tour Down Under to start tomorrow

arrived in Melbourne late on 10th night.I got my spanking new boat yesterday.Today went out for my first sail ,everything looks set and ready.The tour down under starts tomorrow,The warm up regatta (Sail For Gold) for World Cup series event Sail Melbourne.This is the 20th year of the sail for gold regatta which is always hosted by the Black rock Yacht club.7 races are expected to be sailed in two days with an early 1030 am warning signal.This is my first event of the new 2008-2009 season in the radial class.

Ajay Rau for Australia & New Zealand 08-09 Tour-Sailing

Ajay Rau has confirmed his participation at the 60 day tour, where he will be racing in six ISAF events spread across Melbourne, Perth (Australia), Auckland and New Plymouth (New Zealand). Ajay's first port of call will be the prestigious Sail Melbourne and Sail For Gold Regatta (Melbourne) in December this year. International and Olympic sailors from all over the world will converge on Melbourne for the first leg of the (ISAF) World Cup series from– December 16-21. Ajay has prepared well for this tour, putting in many hours both at home and abroad. He has just returned from the Island of Embiez (France) on 2nd December from a 40 day training Camp. This island is home to 08 Olympic silver medal success and award wining SailCoach (Coaching Company). Watch out for this youngster. He is among the fast moving youngsters from the Asian Region on the Laser International Scene He is scheduled to leave from Chennai International Airport on the night of 8th December.

Training report on the last few weeks I spent on SailCoach Island

These last few weeks have been the best training I have experienced in my short sailing carrier. The Island had 1 sailor from Malta who stayed an extra week after the rest (4 member team) had gone back to Malta. There were 3 sailors from the national squad who made their way to the Island. We also had 1 sailor from Italy and Switzerland who joined the training group. With a total of 1 sailors from (SUI.MLT,IND),2 sailors from (ITA),4 sailors from (LTU),which adds up to 9 sailors training hard together. For these two weeks we had great on water coaching from the managing director of Sailcoach- Trevor.This was the first time he took up a coaching assignment after the Beijing Olympics where he was very successful coaching vassilij (SLO) who got his second Olympic medal (this time an improvement from Athens), silver. He set up some very challenging training exercises where we did allot of small and long course sailing, along with boat handling and very exciting race training which was aimed at bring out our best racing skills and more importantly get us all prepared for upcoming regattas where practice races are very important. This was a rare and unique opportunity where the whole team benefited from this experience The Last week saw a lot of new sailors come on the Island. There were a few sailing stars on the Island from Belgium and Ireland.1 sailor from (IND,ITA,LTU ,SUI,BEL) and 4 sailors from the Irish National Squad. 9 sailors in total again. We had Philip former Olympic and Belgium head coach along with former Olympian and Irish high performance coach Rory. There was always different training everyday which kept us on our toes all the time. The variety of exercises we did was quite a lot. I enjoyed the last day where we had a best of 3 team racing competition which our team lost by default. We should have won it! :) There was a great mix of weather conditions along with some extremes. There were the odd days which were not sailable with no winds and extremely heavy winds (50 + knots. On the Island ….on the very small Mountain 114 knots was recorded).as the days went by it became colder for me coming close to December. Off water fitness was steeped up a gear. Training became longer and harder. On a whole I am very privileged to have had this opportunity to train with Sail Coach again this winter as I have learnt a lot and it has helped me shape up very well for the new 2009 Sailing season. I arrived in Chennai on the 2nd of December; I am at home for a very short while. I will be training with ramji and doing a lot of work towards planning my 2009 season as I leave to Melbourne on the 8th of December, coming Monday. These are the last few days before I leave to for the series Down Under (Australia and New Zealand). I am already missing Embiez (France),I hope to join the team again soon!