Piccinelli victorious with Wobbly Boot

by Ian Grant on 30 Apr 2012 Sun tanned Whitsunday Sailing Club skipper Craig Piccinelli will have to apply his house construction tools in order to build a new trophy cabinet to house the ‘tinware’ won by Wobbly Boot on the tropical warm and windy waters of Pioneer Bay.

The previously unwanted 8m Jim Young designed Wobbly Boot bought by Craig Piccinelli to settle a dispute between the builder and original client has become the top performer in both the mid-week sprint race series and the more important club championship.

Should the success continue it will present the jovial house builder and talented sailor with a spare time commitment to either build a new ‘Trophy Room’ on the house or an oversize display cabinet to showcase the spoils which he and his crew of talented sailing mates have won since they launched Wobbly Boot several seasons ago.

However while Wobbly Boot on 70 points leads the Sprint Race series after 17 races from John Galloway skippered Queensland Marine Services 89 points and the Kevin Fogarty helmed Twister 100 points, the contest for the Club championship remains tight after nine races with Wobbly Boot 19 points leading the Mike Keyte skippered Take Flight on 27 points and the Ross Winterbourn steered Bobby D on 31 points.

Wobbly Boot struggled to finish fifth in last week’s sprint race dominated by the 2006 Rolex Sydney Hobart Performance Handicap champion the Damien Suckling skippered Another Fiasco who revelled in the moderate trade wind to outpace her high .944 correction factor to record a comfortable three minute 16 second victory over Treasure Vlll .895 (Harold Menelaus) with the Jeff Brown helmed 007 .891 another 54 seconds off the pace.

Another Fiasco also finished with a commanding six minute line honours win over the Terry Archer skippered AC 40 Questionable Logic while Harold Menelaus steered his Reichel /Pugh designed Seaquest 36 Treasure Vlll into third another 36 seconds astern.

Peter Millar’s Cynaphobe and the Keith Roberts helmed Wild Thing remain deadlocked on 63 points in the tactical battle to decide the Multihull class sprint race championship.

Rupert King in Overdrive expressed his preference to race with some ‘grunt’ in the breeze to record a runaway 5 minute 42 second handicap win over Wild Thing while Cynaphobe was another 1 minute 7 seconds away third. However the Peter Berry skippered Mark Pescott designed Whitehaven 11.7m catamaran J’Ouvert winner of the 2011 Airlie Beach Race Week multihull class title remains as the crew to beat for the Club championship with six wins in her nine race score of eight points.