In second place were fellow British sailors DJ Edwards and Vyv Townend, who sailed consistently in a wide variety of conditions at Geelong.
In third place were Australians Brendan Garner and Ben O’Brien who are from the Royal Geelong Yacht Club, with Garner also chairing the event. That pair showed remarkable speed in the strong conditions over the first couple of days racing.
Gillard & Thompson’s win was all the more remarkable as they had to sail a borrowed boat as Houiti attacks in the red sea prevented both the UK and Czech containers from arriving in time. The local Australian class put in a massive effort and found loan boats for the sailors affected. In the case of the overall winners the sailors used the Aussie Nationals to refine the rigging by going ashore after every race and spending days of work getting the layouts and systems sorted.
At the prize-giving Gillard thanked the Australian Fireball Association and sll the volunteers who made the event happen. Special praise went to the PRO and race management team who did an absolutely exemplary job over the series. Conditions varied between breezes of 8 and 25 knots. The mainly Southerly thsrmal wnds were at times extremely shifty confounding sailors and leading to a few capsizes over the week. Best of the Irish at the event were Adrian Lee and Ossian Geraghty who ended up just shy of mid-fleet. A couple of places behind were Frank Miller and Ed Butler Snr. Both teams sailed in borrowed boats for the Worlds.
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