Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta preview

by Peter Campbell on 8 Jun 2012 Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta 2012, organised by the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron, is being held this weekend. Tasmania’s most successful offshore racing yachtswoman Sally Rattle will lead an all-women crew on Melbourne’s Port Phillip.

A fleet of 16 yachts of various design and size, crewed by women sailors, mainly from Victoria, but with one crew each from Tasmania and New South Wales, will contest the six race regatta sailed over the long weekend.

Sally Rattle and her crew will represent the Derwent Sailing Squadron, with the sailors drawn from the DSS and the Bellerive Yacht Club. In addition to Rattle who will helm the yacht, the crew comprises Colleen Darcy, Caroline Walker, Heather McCullum, Lauren Davison, Michelle Edwards and Sarah Baldwin.

The Tasmanian women will sail the crack yacht Penfold Audi Sport, an Archambault 31 which has been loaned to them by former Tasmanian yachtsman David Ellis, a member of the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria.

Ellis late last year skippered his yacht in the Launceston to Hobart yacht race and in March won the boat’s division of the Sydney Harbour Regatta. The 31-footer’s main opposition will come from a strong line-up Adams 10 class yachts which race out of the conducting club, the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron based at St Kilda.

'My own boat, Archie, is an Archambault 35, so I am familiar with the design and its lay-out,' Rattle said yesterday as she and her crew prepared for a training sail on Port Phillip.

'I am also familiar with the bay as we finished second overall in the women’s keelboat regatta two years ago, sailing the Sydney 38 Scarlett Runner.

'David says the ones to watch will be the Adams 10s, but he is confident we can hold our own against the local girls,' Rattle added.

Sally Rattle is the first and only woman to have won the Maria Island ocean race and has also sailed Archie to victory in the Bruny Island Race, last year also winning the AMS and IRC handicap divisions of the Launceston to Hobart race.

The only other interstate entrant is Tara McCall, sailing the J24, Kicking Bottom, from NSW.

Most of Melbourne’s bayside yacht clubs are represented, with Joanne Norbury, a member of both the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron and the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria defending her title with the Adams 10, Executive Decision.

Other RMYS boats in the fleet include Rosie Colahan, skippering the Hanse 400, Kaberet, and Dee Mason sailing the Flying Tiger, Tigris.