Russell Coutts will be racing with Hasso Plattner aboard Morning Glory at the forthcoming Rolex Trophy series being held December 11-13.

Coutts will sail with Plattner right through to the 2005 Rolex Farr 40 World Championship including the pre world’s regatta. Racing will be conducted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, on the southern offshore circle off South Head outside Sydney Harbour, which will be the same racetrack for the Rolex Farr 40 worlds in March 2005.

Australian Circuit point score leader and current Mumm 30 World Champion, Richard Perini will be aiming for another win after taking out the F40 fleet title at the recent Savills SORC regatta. ‘We are looking forward to racing against the overseas guys, it will be a good gauge for us and our training programme,’ commented Perini.

Joining the fleet for the first time this season will be John Calvert-Jones and Neville Crichton. Calvert-Jones and his Southern Star crew with Grant Simmer as tactician are the current Australian champions and a number of his crew were part of his team that won the 2000 World Championship in Newport RI. ‘We have a great team and are looking forward to rejoining the fleet and racing in the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship in March,’ remarked Calvert-Jones.

Crichton, who has been racing in Europe on his extremely successful maxi Alfa Romeo, will have Michael Coxon onboard as tactician. Crichton won this regatta in 2003 and will be keen to defend his title and use the regatta as training for the upcoming worlds.

A number of the overseas entries planning to race in the Rolex Farr 40 2005 Worlds will be racing in this regatta as a practice before the 2005 regattas including current Farr 40 World Champion Jim Richardson and his crew on Barking Mad. Also racing will be Steve Howe’s Warpath from the USA west coast fleet.

In the last few weeks the 20th Farr 40 boat has joined the Australian fleet with Tasmanian Hughie Lewis buying Peregrine from the west coast fleet. Peregrine, now named Euro Central, was previously owned by ex-New Zealander David Thompson living in California. The boat won the USA west coast championship in 2000 and was second in the 2002 Rolex Big Boat Series.

It is anticipated there will be 16 or more Farr 40s racing in the Rolex Trophy series One Design racing. Some of the teams plan to race in the Rolex Trophy Series rating regatta the following weekend to make the most of their training opportunities.