Sabot 50th Championship - Tasmania breaks the barrier

by Peter Campbell on 4 Jan 2014 Sabot 50th Championship - Tasmania has broken the New South Wales and Queensland’s domination of the National Sabot dinghy class, yesterday 13-year-old Sam King sailing Red Herring to the State’s first national championship win in more than a decade.

Tasmania had an outstanding regatta, filling four of the top six places overall in the senior one-up class and winning the senior teams series. Two of the top four were from Port Dalrymple Yacht Club.

King, a member of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s Dinghy Group, won six of the 10 races and only twice finished worse than first or second in the ten races sailed in tricky sailing conditions near Cockatoo Island on Sydney’s Upper Harbour.

Last season, he became the first Tasmanian to win the Sabot and Optimist State championship, both single-handed dinghies, and finished third in the 2012-13 Sabot nationals.

This season he chose to concentrate on winning the prestigious 50th championship for the Sabot class and six months of intensive training and coaching on the Derwent paid the top dividend.

He finished the championship yesterday with two firsts, and already unbeatable, a fifth in the 10th and last race. Sam had a final score card of eight points, 23 points clear of his nearest rival Tom Stivano, sailing Slippery Little Sucker from Northern NSW, who finished on 35 points.

Fellow RYCT Dinghy Group sailor William Wallace, sailing Loose Cannon, slipped yesterday from second to finish third overall, finishing the regatta with Three -Seven -Nine results, for an aggregate of 35 points, just two points out of second place.

Ben Markey sailing Seriously from the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron won race ten to finish fourth overall.

Two lads from Port Dalrymple Yacht Club at Beauty Point, finished one point apart in fifth and sixth places. Joshua Harriss, sailing Guided Missile, finished third in the final race to be fifth overall while Joshua Jones (Whisper) came in eighth for sixth overall.

Other top Tasmanian results in the senior one-up division were Joshua Ragg from the RYCT Dinghy Group, 12th overall in White Knuckle Ride, and Clinton Blazely (PDYC) 26th overall in Sailfish.

In the Two-up division, brother and sister Ruby and Max Edmunds, sailing Starter Kit from the PDYC, finished sixth overall, their ten races starting with a win and ending with a second.

Tasmania won the Sabot senior one-up team trophy with 327 points from South Queensland on 359 points and Southern NSW 556 points.

In the senior two-up division team event went to Southern NSW from South Queensland and Tasmania

Event website: click here