Renaissance wins Multihull Brisbane Gladstone

by Ian Grant on 24 Mar 2008 Ross Perrins has made a successful transition from a Brisbane-Gladstone race monohull champion to dominating the Multihull Yacht Club of Queensland Brisbane Gladstone race honour board.

The talented and experienced offshore racing skipper who previously won the prestigious Courier Mail Cup on three occasions with the Peter Norlin designed IOR Half Tonne champion Scampi A added another Gladstone Race trophy to his impressive ocean racing career over the Easter weekend.

Perrins who jokingly said 'I only own one of the two hulls and that’s the one with the fridge' showed the value of a happy and successful catamaran racing partnership with his good mate Mike Hodges when the very comfortable Jeff Schionning designed cruising catamaran Renaissance won the Brisbane to Gladstone race.

The physically tough races spent in the spray drenched cockpit of Scampi A became a distant memory when co skippers Ross Perrins and Mike Hodges protected from the speed sailing spray steered Renaissance to another popular corrected handicap win.

Their victory hung in the balance after Renaissance completed the course in 28 hours 48 minutes to record 10.69 knot average while race officials considered an application for redress from skipper Rob Remilton (Wilparina ll) for the role his crew played in the rescue of the four sailors from the capsized catamaran APC Max.

The George Owen skippered APC Max was duelling for the lead with Martyn Riley’s Raw to the Core when she came to grief off Waddy Point around 11-30 on Good Friday night.

Skipper Rob Remilton’s crew stowed the spinnaker and temporarily withdrew Wilparina II from racing to conduct a search and rescue mission for their unfortunate racing mates.

They executed excellent seamanship finding the inverted APC Max in 55 minutes before spending a further 36 minutes getting their mates safely onboard before they resumed racing.

Wilparina II was noticeably a lot slower with the extra crew weight as she tracked past Lady Elliot Island then onto the finish completing the course in second place behind Raw to the Core with a race average of 12.32 knots.

After the Wilparina II redress was considered the Renaissance crew was officially declared the winner with a corrected time of 22-39-56, 33 minutes 56 seconds ahead of Wilparina II with Mark Wilson’s Viento another 9 seconds astern third.