Rolex Sydney Hobart - Jazz signals her intentions

by Jennifer Crooks on 21 Nov 2010 Cabbage Tree Island Race update.

Chris Bull’s canting keel Cookson 50 Jazz signalled her intentions as the boat that might just beat Stephen Ainsworth’s RP63 Loki to the Tattersall’s Cup, the stunning silver trophy that is presented to the overall winner of the Rolex Sydney Hobart, after claiming the IRC win in the Cabbage Tree Island Race.

With Bull overseas, control of his new boat was left to his crew boss Anthony Haines, navigator Mike Broughton and chief helmsman Christian Ripard, and they brought home the IRC win for an elated owner. Bull and Haines have sailed with each other for a number of years and had spent over a year looking for the right boat to purchase to upgrade from Bull’s previous Jazz, a J155.

The boat, Ray Roberts’ former Evolution Racing, was ideal and soon after it was on the market, Bull quickly snapped her up. After a four month program of refitting, testing and crew training, the boat made her offshore racing comeback in the recent Morna Cup, where she claimed top honours.

Jazz finished seventh over the line yesterday with an elapsed time of 19h, 24 mins and 33 seconds, and had to wait it out until the last boat, Jonathon Stone’s Davidson 34 Illusion, had finished the race early this morning, before being declared the overall winner.

'We made good ground on the first night under the A4 kite with regular surfs over 20 knots. All the crew were up on the rail when we rounded the Island and we made 4-5 gybes to stay lee of the island and I think this is what gave us the advantage,' Haines recalled.

'Getting in and out of Sydney Harbour is difficult and it can be hard to predict what is going to happen when you don’t have too much first-hand knowledge. We stayed right of Sow & Pigs reef and the rhumbline at the start and we lost some ground as we made our way out of the Heads.

'We rounded the Island close to Loki and ahead of Brindabella at 0300hrs (Saturday) and saw that the breeze was split between sou’easterly offshore and sou’west along the coastline. Wedgetail appeared to be fairing well in the offshore SE breeze so we followed them offshore and were on the breeze for most of the trip back to Sydney Harbour,' navigator Mike Broughton said.

'We struggled to keep up with the bigger boats as the head wind dropped to below ten knots but managed to make up some ground coming back into Sydney Harbour where we managed 3-4 spinnaker peels which I believe won us the race,' Haines added. 'Needless to say Chris is over the moon with the win, which puts us in a good position in the lead up to the Rolex Sydney Hobart.' Broughton added

Jazz will maintain an offshore program in the lead up to the Rolex Sydney Hobart, undertaking the Rolex Trophy Passage Series and will also have a fun race around the harbour with the other maxis in the SOLAS Big Boat Challenge.

Bill Wild’s RP55 Rodd & Gunn Wedgetail, the former Yendys, finished second on IRC with Stephen Ainsworth’s Loki third.

Jazz also placed second in the PHS division behind Phil Molony’s new Archambault A40rc Papillon with Hugh Torode’s Beneteau 40.7 Pelagic Magic third. Pelagic Magic will race under the name of Shepherd Centre in the upcoming Rolex Sydney Hobart to raise money for the Shepherd Centre for deaf children.

Eighty-three year old Syd Fischer, a passionate ORCi rule supporter, placed first in the ORCi division with his TP52 Ragamuffin, with AFR Midnight Rambler, Ed Psaltis and Bob Thomas’ modified Farr 40 second and John Taylor’s Cavalier 395 Allegro third.

The Cabbage Tree Island Race, which started on Sydney Harbour at 8.00pm on Friday evening, finished early this morning with the last of the 36 yachts trickling across the line in the early hours. Wild Oats XI, Bob Oatley's 100ft Reichel/Pugh, set a new race record of 14 hours, 13min, 35 sec.

Loki still maintains their strangle hold on the CYCA’s Blue Water Pointscore (BWPS) and Tasman Performance Series (PHS class) leading the BWPS by 14 points from Ragamuffin with Bob Oatley’s RP66 Wild Oats X in third place, a further 12 points behind.

A very pleased Ainsworth is happy to take another first place in the BWPS making it four straight bullets. 'I’m pretty happy with the result – that’s definitely a keeper. I was looking at the results this morning from the race and noticed that Jazz & Wedgetail were casual entrants for this race, which meant that we had achieved another first!'

'Now the aim is to go for five consecutive first positions – and that will be something to really celebrate – a perfect way to end the calendar year,' Ainsworth said.

Commenting on the race, Ainsworth said 'It wasn’t the weather that we were expecting but we made the most of the conditions on the race track. Coming up to the top of the course just as we were about to round Cabbage Tree Island, the smaller boats caught up to us as they had the better breeze – we were in 10 knots and they had 15; but that’s yacht racing!'

Loki has a smaller lead of five points in the Tasman Performance Series from Greg Zyner’s Radford 12m Copernicus with Roger Hickman’s Farr 43 Wild Rose, a further four points behind in third.

Ragamuffin leads the Cape Byron Pointscore Series (ORCi) by ten points from Colin & Gladys Woods’ Cookson 50 Pretty Fly III and Wild Rose both on 16 points.

The three series winners will be decided at the end of the Audi Sydney Offshore Newcastle Race in April. Click here for the results of Blue Water Pointscore Series.

www.cyca.org.au