Eastern Autobody Winter Series 2014 - Saga of the sailing managers

by Peter Campbell on 3 Aug 2014 Bellerive Yacht Club’s Eastern Autobody Winter Series 2014 - A close duel between past and present sailing managers of Bellerive Yacht Club on the Derwent today ended in a narrow win by Chris Sheehan in his Young 88, Saga, taking him to a commanding pointscore lead in the club’s Eastern Autobody Winter Series.

Current sailing manager Dave Willans took line honours in Division 2 in his Masrm 8, Trouble, beating Saga across the line by 1 minute 17 seconds, but on corrected time the race went to former sailing manager Sheehan in Saga by just three seconds.

With four Winter Series races sailed and one to go, Saga leads Division 2 on a net four points. 'We got the best start at the boat end of the line and although Trouble did pull away mid-race we pulled him back for a narrow corrected time win,' Sheehan said after the race.

The fleet enjoyed excellent racing in a northerly breeze on a chilly Hobart morning, with the temperature between 8 and 10 degrees and Mount Wellington covered in snow. 'The breeze varied in strength, around 10 knots at the northern end of the course but down the river it was coming in at 20 knots,' Sheehan said.

Division 1 saw a dead-heat on corrected time between Gavin Adamson’s Mumm 36 Madness from the RYCT and BYC past Commodore John Mills and Ian Douglas’ Lyons 40, Nexedge.

Nexedge led the fleet around the course to finish more than three minutes ahead of Madness, but not far enough to beat the Mumm 36 on handicap, both boats returning a PHS corrected time of 1 hour, 30 minutes and 44 seconds. Third place went to the Sydney 38 Ciao Baby II (Gary Cripps).

This was the second consecutive win by Madness in the BYC Winter Series, again outsailing her two Mumm 36 rivals, TasPaints (Ian Stewart) and Host Plus (Jeff Cordell) boat-for-boat and on handicap.

Madness leads the Division 1 pointscore with a net six points, one ahead of TasPaints, while Host Plus is third overall on 10 points.

Racing is also close in Division 3 of the BYC Winter Series, with Magnum (Colin Gray) closing the gap with a win today from Off-Piste (Paul Einoder) and series leader Kharis (Andrew Dalby).

With one race to go, on Sunday, 24 August, Kharis leads with a net five points from Magnum and Off-Piste, both on eight points.