Three Peaks Race 2013 - Cruising cat takes out Tasmanian Three Peaks

by Peter Campbell on 1 Apr 2013 Three Peaks Race 2013 -The Hobart-based team aboard cruising catamaran Euphoria Furniture, better known as Storm Bay, is provisional winner of the 25th Tasmanian Three Peaks Race, a combination of offshore sailing and endurance mountain running held over the Easter weekend.

Skippered by Steven Laird, the Chamberlin-designed 40-footer, outsailed the fleet and her runners out-paced most of their opponents on each of the three sailing and mountain legs.

Euphoria Furniture sailed into Hobart at 12.48am today, with the Inglis 47 keelboat, AdvantEDGE, berthing at Constitution Dock at 1.21am.

On a cold and windy night, in 25 knot south-westerly winds gusting to 30 knots and a mountain-top temperature of 3° C, Euphoria Furniture’s runners, John Cannell and Chris Turnbull dashed to the peak of 1270m high Mount Wellington and back in 3 hours 4 minutes and 37 second, crossing the finish line at 3.57am.

'The boat is essentially a family cruising catamaran, but we bring together sailors from racing yachts, together with experienced runners to do this event,' Euphoria Furniture’s skipper Steven Laird, a member of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, said this morning.

Euphoria Furniture, along with early leader Piccadillo, broke the race record for the first sailing leg from Beauty Point to Lady Barron, but fell three hours short of breaking the overall record for sailing and running times.

AdvantEDGE’s runners, John Claridge and Robert Brumming, finished at 5.10am with a mountain run time of three hours 49 minutes 44 seconds.

Another Port Dalrymple Yacht Club yacht, Haphazard, a Radford 46vskippered by Nick Edmunds on his 25th Three Peaks Race, finished third in fleet at 7.30am after following Euphoria Furniture and AdvantEDGE on the long course around Tasman Island last night.

The Haphazard runners, Scott Ingles and Adrian Young, completed the Mount Wellington run in 4 hours 45 minutes and 55 seconds, but the fastest time on the mountain came from the runners of the fourth boat to finish, the catamaran Cable Plus Tas – MS Tas which berthed at 2.52am.’

Experienced Three Peaks runners, Aubrey Hendricks and Douglas Grubert, turned in a Mount Wellington tie of two hours 51 minutes and eight seconds.

The last boat to finish the 25th Three Peaks Race, 335 nautical miles of sailing, 133km of running and 2646m of mountain climbing, was the Hobart yacht Tilt, arriving soon after noon Three Peaks Race website