Sail Port Stephens - Bandit out to steal Shogun’s thunder

by Lisa Ratcliff on 17 Apr 2010 With another notch on their belts thanks to a third win on the trot in race three, Rob Hanna’s TP52 Shogun is leading the Yachting NSW Championship overall pointscore, but after scoring a sixth in race four, Matt Allen and Warwick Rooklyn’s Farr 40 Bandit is out to steal Hanna’s thunder having narrowed the gap to just one point heading into the final day of competition.

At one stage today, to everyone’s surprise Bandit, sailing for the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Sydney, actually led the much bigger boat at the top mark in the second race after Shogun found itself punching into plenty of tide.

It will be a scrappy street fight north of Cabbage Tree Island tomorrow when the final two races are run and won, to determine the overall winner of the six-race Yachting NSW IRC Championship, one of the headline acts of Sail Port Stephens 2010.

The handicap win in race four went to Darryl Hodgkinson’s Beneteau First 45 Victoire, their first windward/leeward win for the boat which has already proven its capabilities in the longer races having claimed second overall in the recent Audi Sydney Offshore Newcastle Yacht Race.

Hodgkinson today praised his linchpin, tactician Sean Kirkjian, who is leading a very good team of Sydney 38 sailors from the days he owned Uplift plus a few from the Yendys program including Danny McConville and Share Guanaria from MacDiarmid Sails on the main.

“The view was much better today from the front,” Hodgkinson admitted.

A lucky shift transformed Victoire’s fortunes in race four and gave them the win, as Kirkjian explained: “There was a 100 degree wind shift from south west and we suddenly found ourselves out of the tide and in 10 knots of easterly pressure while the others, who were off playing amongst themselves, got themselves into the tide with no way out.”

Hodgkinson says Port Stephens is a great place to sail and that this regatta is a fantastic opportunity to learn to sail his latest boat against a decent IRC fleet, “something you can’t do during an ocean race”.

“We intend to do this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart and we have a very active lead-in program,” he added.

The fleet was privileged to have Glenn Ashby in their midst today, the Australian Olympic sailor and 13-time world champion making a guest appearance aboard Shogun after speaking at last night’s Tyrrells Yachties Ball on his experience as coach of BMW Oracle’s winning America’s Cup team.

After today’s two windward/leeward races, John Streeter’s Newcastle based Bull 9000 Raging Bull currently has division two of the IRC Championship by the horns with a one-point difference back to Guy and Clarke Holbert’s local Farr 30 Rumbo representing Port Stephens Yacht Club and today’s race three winner.

Like Victoire, Rumbo’s Novocastrian tactician Chris Pritchard was happy to take the spoils of the dramatic easterly shift. “We weren’t having a good first lap; the shift put us in a much better position.”

On an equal handicap rating with Roger Hickman’s Farr 43 Wild Rose, the pair, while completely different designs from different generations of boat building, is enjoying a close tussle around the windward/leeward offshore race track.

Tomorrow’s forecast is for variable winds 5-10 knots tending east to northeasterly 10-15 knots during the afternoon. Competitors are crossing their fingers for breeze over 10 knots tomorrow to throw some adrenaline into the mix and possibly shake the placings up.

For further information, please visit: www.sailportstephens.com.au