BUSHIDO 11 SNATCHES HOG'S BREATH RACE WEEK TITLE WITH FINAL RACE WIN.

by Ian Grant on 18 Aug 2000 New Zealand sailors claimed another major yachting trophy when the fast Greg Elliott designed cruiser racer Bushido 11 co skippered by Rex and Wayne Woods of Tauranga won the International Hog's Breath Race Week title off Airlie Beach yesterday.

Bushido 11 racing in the Performance Handicap rated division against quality competition including the high performance Australian yachts Leroy Brown (Warren Wieckmann) and the Ron Jones helmed Admirals Cup 40 Sledgehammer won the title with a final race win.

The power sailing 16m cruiser racer was the star performer over the 20 n/ml Olympic triangle type course building a strong grip on the overall fastest corrected handicap course time by using the smaller and faster Sydney Farr 40 Leroy Brown as a pacemarker.

Leroy Brown noted for her record breaking class records in the Telstra Sydney Hobart and Sydney Southport races was pressed hard by the classy Kiwi cruiser/racer to claim line honours.

Bushido 11 advantaged with hull size and sail power compared with the smaller Leroy Brown made gains on the two sail reaching legs while Leroy Brown held the edge slightly on the spinnaker runs and slogging upwind into the freshening 15-25 knot South East breeze.

They were only split by a 2 minute margin after 2 hours 45 minutes of exciting racing with the Bushido 11 crew claiming the fastest corrected handicap time by 5minutes 37 seconds ahead of Don Algie's 16.7m Van de Stadt Storm with the Beneteau 45s Anteater (Peter Neaves)another 1 minute 14 seconds astern third.

The race win added to the consistent scorecard in the six race 125 n/ml series allowed Bushido 11 with her 4-4-2-11-5-1 (16pts) to claim a popular 2 point win over Ian Nicholson's 18.3m Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club sloop Intrigue of Stornaway 6-1-1-1-9-10 (18pts) and Anteater 11-5-5-5-1-3 (19pts).

Leroy Brown staged some spirited duels to win the monohull class line honours title while the overall fastest time title was won by the fast lane sailing 10 metre Grainger Trimaran Trilogy skippered by Keith Glover.

Trilogy also won her class scoring a 1-2-3-2-5-1 despite a penalty plus rating of 1.1050 to take the series by 3 points over the Airlie Beach 10m Tennant catamaran Ratzcat (2-1-1-5-3-dnf) 12pts and the Australian Multihull offshore champion Alpha Centauri 4-3-dns-3-4-2.

In other classes the 10.6m Lidgard Kerinda (1-2-3-9-12-6) 21pts won Performance Handicap divison 2 from the Adams 10 Jungle Juice (6-7-6-10-4-1) 23pts with the Farr 1104 Slainte Mhath 4-11-2-5-5-7 23pts third.

A final race win allowed the 32 year old Spencer designed Scimitar (1-3-3-2-5-1) 10 pts to win the Cruising class on countback from Risque (3-1-2-1-3-5) 10pts with Athena (4-2-1-5-4-3) 14pts 3.