Round one to Shogun at Range Series

by Di Pearson on 21 Oct 2005 Following an inauspicious start, Robert Hanna’s new DK 46, Shogun, from Royal Geelong Yacht Club, fresh from its first outing at Hamilton Island’s Hahn Premium Race Week in August, took out the IRC class in the first heat of the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria’s McCutcheon Cup Range Series on Saturday.

Sailed in ideal 8-12 knot south easterly breezes on Port Phillip, the first race of the series was sailed on a 14 nautical mile four leg windward/leeward course, attracted around 117 of Victoria’s top boats, competing for trophies in IRC, AMS and PHD divisions.

In the IRC class, Michael Hiatt, and his new Cookson 50, Living Doll, made the best of the start, along with Chris Dare’s newly purchased Corby 49, Flirt and the DK 46 Dekadence, owned and skippered by Sandringham Yacht Club Commodore, Phil Coombs.

Buried under two Beneteau 44,7s; Ray Shaw’s Outrageous and Alan Whiteley’s Cougar, Shogun did not get of the line as well as her crew would have liked.

As they made their way up the first beat, the fleet was fairly evenly spread across the course and a close battle was being waged between Dekadence, Shogun and John Paterson’s ILC 45 Rush.

The pressure stayed consistent, occasionally moving 10 or so degrees left and good crew work on Shogun found it ahead of Dekadence at the bottom mark, after Shogun’s crew executed a slightly better float drop.

From that point on, Shogun’s crew never looked back; finishing six minutes behind the line honours winner, Living Doll, which finished 11th overall, and four minutes behind Flirt, which was second on line and fifth overall.

‘It was fantastic.’ Hanna said afterwards. ‘This is only our second event – Hamilton Island was our first, but we finally got it right here, after making some adjustments to our rig and sails.’

Although the light and flat conditions were more suited to the Beneteau 44.7s, Shogun was the faster boat on the day, beating two consistently well sailed yachts; second placed Cougar, by a corrected time margin of three minutes four minutes in front of third placed Challenge, Lou Abrahams’ Sydney 38.

Heat 2 of the Range Series will be sailed on Saturday, November 5, with the third head to be sailed on December 3.

Final top ten results:

Place Yacht Skipper Elapsed Corr. Time

1 SHOGUN R Hanna 139.2 167.88

2 COUGAR A Whitley 153.98 170.61

3 CHALLENGE L Abrahams 154.35 171.64

4 VELOCE P Simpfendorfer 160.67 172.07

5 FLIRT C Dare 135.2 172.11

6 OUTRAGEOUS R Shaw 154.67 172.3

7 RUSH J Paterson 141.08 172.54

8 DEKADENCE P Coombs 143.15 172.78

9 NO FEARR M Hannaford 157.03 173.21

10 MUSKETEER P Jacka 156.97 174.55

Full results: http://www.rycv.yachting.org.au/

Further information on DK yachts: www.workforcemarine.com.au