Foundation Race - Dirty Deeds likely in WA Offshore Season Opener
by FSC Offshore on 16 Sep 2014
Dirty Deeds gets a thorough clean up after arriving at Fremantle Sailing Club FSC Offshore
2014 George Law Foundation Race - It is well known in big boat sailing circles that a successful yacht needs a great theme song - think of Australia II with 'Downunder', and Black Betty with, well, 'Black Betty'. Based on that criterion, Alan Stein's recent WA arrival 'Dirty Deeds' can look forward to a rocking future.
The lightweight carbon fibre Botin and Carkeek-designed GP 42 started life as 'Fermax' competing on the Mediterranean TP52/GP42 circuit. When the GP42 component of the circuit folded due to the GFC, Mooloolaba yachtsman Rod Jones brought the boat to Australia to succeed his sequence of Australian IRC Championship-winning Archambaults, all named 'Alegria'. Jones modified the yacht for IRC by changing the keel and adding a bowsprit, then raced the boat as 'Alegria 4' for a season.
The yacht then raced a number of seasons out of Sydney as 'Yeah Baby', before returning to Jones' Queensland base, from where Stein, who has successfully raced the Foundation 36 'The X Factor' for the past two seasons, purchased it and trucked it to Fremantle.
Stein's crew, led by Doyles sailmaker Kyle 'Chewy' Dodds, has been hard at work assembling and preparing the yacht for the past three weeks. Subject to the arrival of a custom rigging part, Dirty Deeds will make her WA racing debut in Fremantle Sailing Club's 42 nautical mile George Law Foundation Race, the around Rottnest opening event of the WA Offshore Season, this Saturday.
It is also well known, however, that nothing in offshore racing can be done 'dirt cheap'!
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