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Sail-World.com : Bruny Island Race - startline embarrassment
Bruny Island Race - startline embarrassment
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'Mr Kite tangles with the committee boat at the start of the Bruny Island Race while 2 Unlimited breaks free and picks up a little breeze.'
Peter Campbell ©
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There are few more embarrassing moments in a yacht race than for a competing yacht to bump into the committee boat at the start, especially when you are leading contender.
This happened to Mr Kite and 2 Unlimited in a near windless start to the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s Southern Food Supply Bruny Island Race, the 86th circumnavigation of the elongated island south of Hobart.
The tide carried both Mr Kite, Andrew Hunn Cape/Barrett 40, and 2 Unlimited, Greg Prescott’a Melges 32, two of the fastest offshore racing boats in Hobart, onto the RYCT start boat as they drifted with barely a puff of breeze to fill their sails.
Apart from being last to cross the line, both boats had to then carry out 360 degree penalty turns, losing more time. 2 Unlimited got a little slant of wind just after the starting signal, but Mr Kite was stuck there, her crew fending the boat off the committee boat, for more than five minutes.
In a 2 knot headwind, Tony Lyall’s TransPac 52 Cougar II got the best start as the 25 boat fleet headed down the Derwent from the start off the Hobart regatta grounds, just south of the Tasman Bridge.
Don Calvert’s Castro 40 Intrigue also got a good start to the 89 nautical mile race that he first sailed in 55 years ago when his father Charles Calvert skippered Caprice to victory. Don has since won the Bruny Island Race eight times with Intrigue, between 1985 and 2011.
Cougar II lost her lead off Sandy Bay, with the two Farr 40’s War Games (Wayne Banks-Smith) and POW (Michael Cooper) outsailing her in the light winds.
However, once south of the John Garrow Light, the bigger boat lifted her boatspeed to regain the lead from War Games and POW, followed by Auch (Richard Scarr) and Dump Truck (Edward Fader and Justin Wells).
 | Mr Kite leads Cougar II down the River Derwent past the John Garrow Light at Sandy Bay - Bruny Island Race 2012 - Peter Campbell © Click Here to view large photo |
With the southerly breeze still light, the fleet closed up as the leaders passed the Iron Pot at the entrance to the River Derwent and headed south into the Tasman Sea and down the eastern coast of Bruny Island, with race officer Roger Martin having signalled ‘leave Bruny Island to port’ at the start.
It took the leaders almost three hours to sail the 11 nautical miles down the Derwent to the Iron Pot, by which time the lead had changed hands several times and the tardy starters, Mr Kite and 2 Unlimited had regained some of their lost status in the fleet.
Just before 1300 hours, three and a half hours after the start, Cougar II was still making only 3 knots to windward, 2.4 nautical miles south of the Iron Pot and less than half a nautical mile ahead of POW, which was closely followed by Mr Kite in third place.
 | Take Five (Ian Gannon) and Hot Prospect (Ian Marshall) sailing down the Derwent off Long Beach, Sandy Bay - Bruny Island Race 2012 - Peter Campbell © Click Here to view large photo |
Only a few hundred metres astern of Mr Kite came 2 Unlimited, followed by Auch and War Games.
Unless the wind increases substantially this afternoon and this evening, as the fleets heads back up the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, the 86th Bruny Island Race of 2012 is going to be a very slow race back to the finish line off Hobart’s Castray Esplanade.
by Peter Campbell
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http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=93806
5:08 AM Sat 11 Feb 2012 GMT
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