SB3 World Championship – Nick Rogers begins campaign

by Peter Campbell on 27 Apr 2012 SB3 World Championship is being held at Hamilton Island in December 2012. Champion sailor Nick Rogers on Sunday will launch and race a brand new SB3 sports boat as he begins his campaign for the event.

The boat, to be named Toll Shipping, will be the twelfth SB3 in the expanding fleet of these high-performance, one-design racing yachts on Hobart’s River Derwent.

A thirteenth boat will shortly arrive from Melbourne, making the Hobart SB3 fleet the biggest club fleet in the nation.

Rogers last summer finished third overall in the Australian championship for the SB3 class, following his victory in the Prince Philip Cup for the Dragon class, both events being sailed on the Derwent.

'I am now concentrating on preparing for the SB3 worlds at Hamilton Island and with an active fleet here in Hobart we will get all the competition and time we need to optimise the new boat before we head north to Queensland for the pre-Worlds,' the former Dragon class world champion said yesterday.

'Hamilton Island Yacht Club is expecting 40 overseas entrants and 25 Australian yachts, including Australian champion Glenn Bourke, to contest the SB3 worlds from December 15-20,' Rogers added.

Rogers’ crew for the worlds will be Michael Viney with leading Laser sailor George Jones, replacing Nick Dineen who has had to pull out of the crew because of work commitments.

George’s father, Murray Jones, crews for another prominent Hobart sailor David Graney, on Wedgewood, which will also be contesting the SB3 world championship.

Nick Roger’s launching of his new boat has resulted in the sale of his previous boat to wellknown Derwent Sailing Squadron member Scott Brain, with the thirteenth SBS being bought by Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania member Andrew Blakeney. Another recent SB3 buyer is Roger King, also an RYCT member.

Rogers will race his new boat on Sunday in the Derwent Sailing Squadron’s autumn short-handed series with his longtime Dragon crew mate Leigh Behrens.

The winning team from the Dragon class set the pace last Sunday in Division 3 of the DSS short-handed series with a line and handicap win from Balios (Peter Langford) and Hypertronics (Stephen Catchpool).

Naval architect Fred Barrett won Division 1 with his 6.5 metre sportsboat, Fang to the Max, just 30 seconds ahead on corrected time from another sports boat, Steve Harrison’s Thompson 7, WA Cromarty Engineers, from the Esperance Sailing Club at Dover.

The J35 Mem (Paul Boutchard) had a more decisive corrected time win Division 2, just under two minutes clear of Vistula (Greg Biskup) with Sirocco (John MacIntosh) third. Portobello (Ian Johnston) won Division 4 from Serenity (Graham Hall) and Quebrada (Tim Maddock).