Combined Club Harbour Series - Day 1 on the River Derwent

by Peter Campbell on 14 Oct 2012 The Farr 40s, the elite of one-design big boat racing in Australia, set a cracking pace in the opening day of Hobart’s Combined Club Harbour Series on the River Derwent today.

Racing aggressively from start to finish, the five Farr 40s completed three hard-fought windward/leeward races in an 8-12 knot south-easter, a chilly but steady breeze coming up the Derwent.

The races produced three different winners – Voodoo Chile, steered by Rod Chamberlain winning race one, Wayne Banks-Smith’s War Games leading all the way from a brilliant start in race two, and Wired (Stephen Boyes) winning the last race which saw just 40 seconds between first and fourth.

On the day, Wired had a 3-2-1 result, War Games scored 2-1-4 and Voodoo Chile placed 1-5-2, setting the pattern for what will be big season for the class, the State championships in January expected to attract interstate competition as part of a national series.

The Combined Clubs Harbour Series has attracted more than 50 entries, with more expected to compete in windward/leeward racing and over round-the-buoys courses. A similar number of boats have entered for the Combined Clubs Long Race Series, sailing distance day races of up to 40 nautical miles.

Group 1 produced two winners under PHS scoring and a mix of placegetters in its two races. Paul Boutchard’s J35 Mem took out race one on corrected time from Don Calvert’s Castro 40 Intrigue; third place went to the Mumm 36, TasPaints, skippered by Ian Stewart.

Race two continued the duel between Bellerive Yacht Club’s two Mumm 36s, with Host Plus Executive (Jeff Cordell) winning from Taspaints, third place going to Sally Rattle’s Archambault 35 Archie.

Don Calvert’s Intrigue celebrated the 28th anniversary of her launching with excellent results under the IRC and AMS rating systems. The timber-hulled Castro 40, which represented Australia at the Admiral’s Cup in 1985, won both Group 1 races under the IRC category.

Intrigue also won race one under AMS scoring, placing second in race two to Jeff Cordell’s Host Plus Executive.

In race one, Intrigue won AMS from Darren Clark’s Invincible, third going to Host Plus Executive which won the second race on AMS from Invincible, TasPaints and Intrigue.

Under IRC scoring, Intrigue won both races from Host Plus Executive and Sydney Hobart entrant Martela (Tony Williams).

Results were mixed over the two races for Group 2, with Jigsaw (Neil Snare) winning the first race from Wildfire (Team Wildfire) and Spare Time (Shane Powell) and the second race going to Dave Willans’ Trouble which won from Rouseabout (Grahame Inglis) and Spare Time.

Group 4 went to Rumbeat (Justin Barr) from the SB20 Balios (Peter Langford) and Serica (Charles Peacock). AMS scoring for Group 2 saw Rumbeat first on corrected time from Xcite (Robin White) and Total Lock Alarms (John Mills).

Group 6 saw a win for Don’t Bug Me (Peter Bugg) from the historic D-class yacht Gnome, skippered by Derek Adams. Kindred Spirit, a Mottle 33 steered by Alastair Douglas, placed third.