A team from Western Australia has reserved a place on the starting line of the 2004 Antarctica Cup, the US $6.4 million maxi-yacht race through the Southern Ocean, that starts and finishes in Fremantle.

Led by locally based, international business man Mark Rodoreda, the team is already in negotiations with a number of Western Australia’s top sailors, and are very optimistic about support from the local business community.

Rodoreda was very enthusiastic about the home town entry, saying, “we have so many great sailors in WA, and they have to go overseas to get their international competition.

“It’s going to be great to give them a chance to sail for WA in a major international race that starts and finishes in Fremantle.”

Mark himself comes from a family with a long history of offshore sailing in Western Australia, and competed at international level back in the eighties, including five years on the Bob Williams’ pocket maxi Freight Train, and as a trialist for the Australia II crew in ’83.

Bob Williams, the chairman of the Antarctica Cup, was delighted that Western Australia was putting up an entry, and threw down the gauntlet to sailors from the east coast of the country.

“The Victorians are in, with Grant Wharington,” he said, “and now Western Australia has an entry, what about the guys from Sydney and the rest of New South Wales, where are they?”

The Antarctica Cup, which is scheduled to start in December 2004, will be raced in a fleet of up to fifteen 82 foot maxi turbo-sleds, and has already attracted entries from the United States, England, the Netherlands and Australia.