Limit declared Sydney 38 National Champion

by Skandia Geelong Week media on 28 Jan 2008
In a dramatic turnaround in the Morris Finance Sydney 38 Australian Championship which finished yesterday at Skandia Geelong Week, Alan Brierty’s Limit has climbed to the top of the score sheet following Cameron Miles’ retirement this morning from race eight.

“We are delighted and Alan is thrilled. We sailed very hard against some excellent competition,” Limit’s skipper Roger Hickman said this afternoon.

The first-time national Sydney 38 champion continued, “we have the greatest respect for all our fellow competitors; it was a great regatta. Skandia Geelong Week is the big winner”.

West Australian owner Alan Brierty was not on board for the nationals, leaving his Sydney 38 in the capable hands of his skipper, ocean racing veteran Hickman, and Victorian yachting legend Ian ‘Barney’ Walker who called tactics for the series.

Brierty will rejoin his crew in Sydney this Friday for the start of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Flinders Island race, the penultimate race of the seven-race Blue Water Pointscore Series.

The Limit crew, currently third in the pointscore, will revert back to the Corby 49 of the same name as they attempt to topple the TP52’s that are dominating the pointscore, as they have done at Skandia Geelong Week which finishes today.

“We are happy that we won, but now the Limit team has to head back to Sydney to resume the task of chasing the formidable Syd Fischer and rising star Graeme Wood.”

Commenting on the circumstances surrounding his win, Hickman said “yachting is the total package; there are so many facets to it”.

On the flip side, a disappointed Miles accepted they broken the rules by having their engine running within four minutes of the starting gun in Race 8. They believed they had exonerated themselves by doing a 360 degree penalty turn, but in the end agreed they had misread the sailing instructions and subsequently retired from that race, despite surviving a protest hearing last night.

“We finished second because we broke a rule,” Miles said. “We all learn”.

Limit finished the three-day regatta as the leading Sydney 38 on 25 points ahead of Rush on 28 points and Lou Abrahams’ Challenge on 38 points.

A good natured challenge was thrown down by Hickman this afternoon. Both Stephen Ainsworth, who crewed for Miles at this regatta, but usually skippers his own grand prix ocean racers with Miles as his sailing master, and Brierty, are about to commence building their respective new Reichel/Pughs.

Brierty has decided to show allegiance to Victoria, where he began sailing, by signing Mal Hart Marine to construct his new RP 63, and Ainsworth is about to sign a builder for his RP of a similar size.

When the two new boats hit the water later this year, there will be a score to settle. “It’s going to be on,” Hickman said of the sailing rivalry that has escalated between the two following this hard fought series.