Higgins & March power to Australian 505 Nationals win with Seldén Cumulus mast
by Selden Mast 31 Jan 2017 11:46 GMT
15-20 January 2017
Australian 505s at the 2016 Worlds in Weymouth © Mark Jardine
The 2017 Australian 505 Championship took place from 15-20 January at Brighton & Seacliff Yacht Club in Adelaide. The home favourites of Sandy Higgins and Paul Marsh sailing their boat 'Hawaii Five-O' took the win and their 6th Australian Nationals title.
Conditions were challenging with only five of the scheduled 9 races completed and two days where no racing was possible.
Sandy commented on his new rig setup, "We were using the Seldén Cumulus Section along with North Sails. This is a new combination for us and was the best the boat has felt across the full wind range for some time. It was extremely pleasing to have good boat speed again, something we have struggled to find for the past few years."
Second overall was double World Champion Mike Holt. Sandy said on having the top American sailor at the event, "It was awesome having double world champion Mike Holt come down and participate in our nationals, we have had some close races with him over the years at various World Championships so having him here made the win even sweeter."
The team of Higgins and Marsh are now the most successful Australians at national level and beating Holt and Woelfel to the title puts them into the upper echelons of 505 sailing worldwide.
Full results can be found at topyacht.net.au/results/bsyc/2016/club/505nat/SGrp25.htm
The Seldén Cumulus and Alto mast sections are ideal for the 505 and have been designed to give the best stiffness to weight ratio available in an alloy extrusion. Material, section shape and size, and wall thickness all have a major effect on both the static and dynamic bend characteristics of a tube. These details are studied in the design of every section and are carefully checked on every piece of spar tube we use.
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