JJ Giltinan 18ft Trophy: Double Bay boatpark decision decides Race 5

Thu, 21 Feb 2013


A rig choice in the park at Double Bay was critical to the Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel’s victory in Race 5 of the Winning Group 2013 JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship, sailed on Sydney Harbour on Wednesday afternoon.

With the ESE breeze on the edge of the 1 and 2 rigs, the teams electing to go for the bigger rigs won the day, filling four of the top five placings.

Jack Macartney, David Witt and Mark Kennedy took the honours in Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel by just 18s from Smeg (Nick Press, Dan Phillips, Dave Ewings).

John Winning, Andrew Hay and Jim Beck had their best result of the championship when they brought Yandoo home in third place, 1m16s behind Smeg.

Allowing for each skiff discarding her worst performance in the regatta, Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel joins Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin), which was placed fourth today using the smaller 2 rig.

Top visitor in today’s race was New Zealand’s Yamaha (David McDiarmid) in fifth place, followed by Sydney boat, Appliancesonline.com.au (Micah Lane).

Gotta Love It 7 and Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel each have a total of 8 points after discard, followed by Thurlow Fisher Lawyers (Michael Coxon) on 14, Smeg 17 and New Zealand’s C-Tech (Alex Vallings), also on 17. C-Tech was forced out of today's race after a collision on the first beat.

Thurlow Fisher Lawyers got a ‘flyer’ at the start and was 22s ahead of Coopers-Rag & Famish at the windward mark.

Brisbane 18 Footers (Daniel Jack) was in third spot, at Mark 1, ahead of Lumix (Jonathan Whitty), ASCC (Murray England, New Zealand) and Appliancesonline.com.au.

After a bad start Gotta Love It 7 was well back in the fleet.

Thurlow Fisher and ‘The Rag’ had a great battle downwind, then on the work back to Clarke Island, where Thurlow Fisher had increased her lead to 30s.

Appliancesonline was now third but Smeg was beginning to move up ahead of Asko Appliances (Marcus Ashley-Jones), Gotta Love It 7, Yandoo and Pica (James Mears, UK).

The Rag’s bigger sail again came to the fore on the reach into Chowder Bay where the two boats rounded together for the beat across the harbour into Rose Bay.

With Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel holding a narrow lead over Thurlow Fisher Lawyers as the pair set spinnakers for the run back across the harbour to Taylor Bay, Thurlow’s race fell apart when skipper Michael Coxon fell overboard.

The incident is a massive setback to the team, which was previously only two points from the lead going into today’s race.

Over the final legs of the course, Smeg put out a strong challenge to The Rag but the experience on board the Rag covered Smeg’s every move in a great finish.

The Rag’s for’ard hand David Witt, who is one of the sport’s great characters, wasn’t short of a comment after the race.

'Did you notice how the top three teams were all the older guys in the fleet'.

'The younger generation will have to toughen up', he quipped tongue in cheek.

Race 6 on Saturday starts at 4pm and Race 7 on Sunday at 3pm.

The spectator ferry leaves Double Bay Wharf 30 minutes before the scheduled start time of each race. There will also be two ferries for Race 7 on Sunday.

Live Tracking: click here

Video Coverage and ‘Pick-the-Podium’: click here

For the official leaderboard: click here

Coverage is also available at www.18skiff.com

Today’s race sponsored by Smeg.

Results Race 5:
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Pointscores after Race 5

Name	Nation	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Total	Highest Dropped	POS
Gotta Love It 7	Aust	Seve Jarvin, Scott Babbage, Peter Harris	1	2	1	4	4	12	12	1
Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel	Aust	Jack Macartney, David Witt, Mark Kennedy	2	3	2	6	1	14	14	2
Smeg	Aust	Nick Press, Dan Phillips, Dave Ewings	9	4	8	3	2	26	26	3
Appliancesonline.Com.Au	Aust	Micah Lane, Paul Montague, Tom Anderson	7	8	3	10	6	34	34	4
Thurlow Fisher Lawyers	Aust	Michael Coxon, Dave O’Connor, Trent Barnabas	4	1	32	1	8	46	46	5
Cst Composites	USA	Howie Hamlin, Matt McKinlay, Dave Gibson	8	7	13	7	13	48	48	6
Yamaha	NZ	David McDiarmid, Andrew Archibald, Mark Overington	11	15	9	8	5	48	48	7
C-Tech	NZ	Alex Vallings, Josh McCormack, Pe by Frank Quealey Our advertisers are committed to our sport, please support them! (Graphics) Contact us , ph: +61 2 8006 1873, , fax: +61 2 8076 0459 or complete our feedback form. View our Privacy Policy. Photographs are copyright by law, if you wish to use a photograph from www.sail-world.com, please Contact us. [Go Home(Graphics)] Make sail-world.com Australia my default page.    Make sail-world.com Cruising International my default page.  Make sail-world.com Cruising Australia my default page.  Make sail-world.com Asia my default page.   Make sail-world.com New Zealand my default page.   Make sail-world.com UK my default page.   Make sail-world.com USA my default page.   Visit another region : Sail-World Australia    Sail-World Cruising International   Sail-World Cruising Australia   Sail-World Asia   Sail-World New Zealand   Sail-World UK   Sail-World USA   Navionics Australia Navionics is proud of its superb cartographic database comprising more than 25,000 charts and port plans; the largest privately owned database of its kind, the only one using full seamless technology [More info] http://www.navionics.com.au Performance Sailcraft Australia (Asia Pacific) Laser builder Performance Sailcraft Australia has taken on the successful RS Sailboat range from Britain, and is now licensed to build and distribute all of the RS range in the Asia Pacific region. [More info] http://www.lasersailing.com.au