Combined Clubs Harbour Series - Mumm 36s share honours in final

by Peter Campbell on 30 Mar 2014 The ‘world championship’ of the Mumm 36 class yacht was decided on the River Derwent on Saturday with Jeff Cordell’s Host Plus Executive, Ian Stewart’s TasPaints and Gavin Adamson’s Madness sharing the honours in the final Combined Club Harbour Series for the summer season of 2013-2014.

Host Plus Executive won the AMS division of Group one overall, TasPaints took out the PHS division, with Madness winning both windward/leeward races on PHS handicaps and finishing with two - one result under AMS scoring.

Bellerive Yacht Club friendly rivals Cordell and Stewart coined the ‘Mumm 36 world championship’ concept several seasons back as their near identical yachts raced boat-for-boat in river racing. Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania member Adamson joined them with a third Mumm 36 this season.

Designed by Bruce Farr, the Mumm 36 was created as a smaller one-design yacht for the Admiral’s Cup in the mid-1990s and has since proved to be an excellent yacht for round-the-buoys and offshore racing.

Hobart turned on a sparkling autumn afternoon for the final race day, with Bellerive Yacht Club race officers able to run two windward/leeward races in an eight - twelve knot south-easterly breeze for Groups one and two and a good race around the estuary for Groups four and six.

Host Plus Executive led three Mumm 36s home in the first race, also winning overall on AMS corrected time, with Madness second, TasPaints dead-heating for fourth place with Mem (Paul Boutchard). In the second and final race, Madness was the front-runner of the Mumm 36s, also winning the race on corrected time, with Host Plus Executive second and TasPaints third.

The overall result for the season saw Host Plus finish first on 16 points, TasPaints second on 21 points, third place to Masquerade (Tony Harman) with Madness fourth.

In the Group one PHS division, Madness won both races on corrected time, but the overall season pennant went to TasPaints on a countback from Mem, both finishing on 30 points. Third overall went to Host Plus Executive on 33 points.

Just half a point separated Nat Morgan’s Hot August Night from the Derwent Sailing Squadron and Dave Willans’ Trouble (BYC) after the final two races for Group two, both races yesterday won by Wildfire (Malcolm Robinson).

Hot August Night notched up two thirds to finish the summer series with 26 points, Trouble had a second and a fourth today to end up with 26.5 points while third overall went to Spare Time (Shane Powell) with 29.5 points.

The Group four and six fleet sailed one race around the bay to decide their season pennant winners, with just one point separating the top three boats overall in Group four – Eliza (Kevin Jacobson, BYC) on 18 points, Chicas (John Lewis, Geilston Bay Boat Club) on 19 points, taking second place on a countback from the RYCT entrant Pirates Pride (Peter Masterton).

Galapagos Duck (Terry Bragg, BYC) won the final race for Group four but finished well down the points score, as did the Group six last race winner Don’t Bug Me (Peter Bugg DSS).

Group six overall went to the RYCT yacht Kindred Spirit, skippered by Alastair Douglas, a last race fourth giving the Mottle 33 an eight point winning margin from Ingenue (Nigel Johnston), third overall going to Innovator (Ian Smith).