Yachting Australia

Held over Australia Day weekend next January, the Championships will be sailed on the protected waters of Victoria Harbour, Melbourne Docklands, and hosted by Docklands Yacht Club and Sailability Docklands.

Melbourne Docklands will be the focus of Australian and international attention between January 18 and February 12, while the fleet of Volvo 70s take a break from their round-the-world racing. Seven of these ocean racing thoroughbreds will be in the water or on the hard stand at Docklands during Australia Day weekend and open to public viewing.

The Access Championships will be the key event on Victoria Harbour during the Australia Day weekend (Thursday 26 to Sunday 29 January), with an Australia Day sail-past and three days of racing planned. The Volvo Ocean Race arrival celebrations are scheduled for the weekend before and the In-Port Race is scheduled for the weekend after, so the Access Nationals will take the spotlight in between.

For the international division, entries will come from Australia, NZ, Singapore, Japan, USA and Canada. The national division will attract Sailability entries from NSW, ACT, Victoria, SA, and Queensland. Access classes will include the 2.3, 303 and Liberty. There will also be a demonstration of the new Mitchell-Bethwaite designed Access UD18.

Sailability is a national and international organisation fostering recreational and competitive sailing for everyone, regardless of age or ability. There some 50 Sailability branches around Australia.

The Victoria Harbour venue was host to the Victorian Championship in 2004. It is also been touted as "the best teams racing venue in Australia" because of the outstanding spectator opportunities. This will be a unique Access class event – fun competition for people of all ages and abilities, sailing on a cosmopolitan waterway with a background of the Melbourne city skyline, and all the excitement and entertainment of the Volvo Ocean Race activities.

Yachting Victoria has released a Final Notice of Race for the event with links to tourism and accommodation information. The NOR will soon be on the Yachting Victoria website.