Four crews from the Australian Sailing Development Squad (ASDS) are competing this week in the Australian Women’s Match Racing Championship, taking place in Sydney Harbour from 31 August to 3 September.

Nicky Souter, one of Australia’s best skippers, is leading the squad. She recently skippered an ASDS crew to win the 2009 ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship in Lysekil, Sweden on 2 August.

‘With the Australia squad having our four main skippers at the helm, hopefully we can continue our European winning form back here on our home waters,’ said Souter.

Souter and the rest of the ASDS squad will be racing in Elliott 6 (six metre) boats, the same kind which will be used for women’s match racing at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The ASDS sailors racing in the Australian championships are:

• Nicky Souter (skipper) 
• Nina Curtis
• Nicole Douglass
• Katie Spithill (skipper)
• Samantha Boyd
• Rayshele Martin
• Lucinda Whitty (skipper)
• Olivia Pearce
• Jess Eastwell
• Amanda Scrivenor (skipper)
• Kat Stroinovsky
• Stacey Scrivenor.

The ASDS is a key part of Yachting Australia’s high performance program, which is supported by the Australian Institute of Sport. It provides a national development pathway for the nation’s best sailing talent to gain experience in international competition and earn selection in the Australian national squad for competition at the Olympic Games (ten classes) and the Paralympic Games (three classes).