Manly’s Morna in late bid for Lord Howe Race win

by Peter Campbell on 30 Oct 2007 The smallest boat in the fleet, Greg Zyner’s Cavalier 35 Morna from the Manly Yacht Club, has thrown out a late challenge to take IRC handicap honours in the 414 nm Hempel 34th Gosford to Lord Howe Island ocean race across the Tasman Sea.

At 0800 hours this morning, Morna reported her position only 10.4nm from the finish line outside Lord Howe Island’s coral lagoon. A computer analysis shows her now heading the leader board in the IRC division.

AFR Midnight Rambler, Ed Psaltis and Bob Thomas’s modified Farr 40 One Design, which had headed the IRC rankings virtually since the start on Saturday and finished yesterday evening, has dropped to second place, with Warwick Sherman’s Cookson 12 Occasional Coarse Language now third overall.

Morna’s average speed since the start is now up to 6.20 knots, giving her a corrected speed of 6.51 knots, compared with the finished corrected speed of 6.45 knots for AFR Midnight Rambler.

Morna, the lowest rating boat in the IRC division, should finish the race later this morning for what will be a close result for first place.

Dream Lover, the Queensland MBD 40 skippered by Rick Morgan, finished in the early hours of this morning to maintain first place in the PHS Division, ahead of the Lake Macquarie boat Inner Circle (Darren Cooney/Ken Robinson) which also finished early today.

Other yachts finished so far are Getaway-Sailing.com, skippered by Peter Goldsworthy from the CYCA, which took line honours on Monday afternoon, and Azzuro from the SASC which crossed the line early this morning.

	START:                 OCTOBER	27	13	00
						HRS FROM START
	SKED 6 - DATE/TIME: Tuesday	30	06	05		65.08
IRC PROGRESSIVE RESULTS
						DIST		TRUE	CORR
	YACHT NAME	LAT		LONG		TO FIN	TCC	SPEED	SPEED	PLACE
2090	Morna	31	34	158	50	10.4	0.953	6.20	6.51	1
8338	AFR Midnight Rambler	Finished 29  20:07:40				0.0	1.165	7.51	6.45	2
8008	Occasional Coarse Language	Finished 29  23:20:16				0.0	1.116	7.10	6.36	3
4057	Aurora	31	35	158	58	4.5	1.049	6.29	6.00	4
5527	Polaris of Belmont	32	05	158	57	33.3	0.976	5.85	5.99	5
6343	Great Expectations	31	38	158	59	6.5	1.094	6.26	5.72	6
3724	Salona	32	05	158	51	34.3	1.050	5.83	5.56	7
97	Pacha	31	50	158	24	37.0	1.073	5.79	5.40	8
6156	Kioni	31	32	158	15	40.1	1.123	5.75	5.12	9
PHS PROGRESSIVE RESULTS
						DIST		TRUE	CORR
	YACHT NAME	LAT		LONG		TO FIN	TCF	SPEED	SPEED	PLACE
826	Dream Lover	Finished 30  00:10:48				0.0	1.053	7.00	6.64	1
M762	Inner Circle	Finished 30  04:20:06				0.0	0.998	6.54	6.55	2
6388	Namadgi	32	04	158	59	32.1	0.949	5.87	6.18	3
A142	Azzuro	Finished 30  04:28:30				0.0	1.063	6.52	6.14	4
3433	Dreamtime	32	13	159	01	41.0	1.011	5.73	5.67	5
4384	First Light	31	43	158	16	40.7	1.022	5.74	5.61	6
NOR2	Getaway-Sailing.com	Finished 29  14:44:36				0.0	1.497	8.32	5.56	7
b126	Silver Lady						0.920	Retired - returning to Sydney
4045	Time Out	31	39	158	49		0.957	Retired -  motoring to LHI