Teenagers star at 176th Royal Hobart Regatta

by Peter Campbell on 11 Feb 2014 A highlight of the 176th Royal Hobart Regatta yachting on the River Derwent yesterday was the performance of a crew of four teenage boy and girl dinghy sailors from Sandy Bay Sailing Club, sailing an SB20 sports boat and scoring a fine victory against adult sailors.

The team, all present or past International Cadet dinghy sailors, with former national champion Sam Teidemann at the helm, sailed Building Concept to a fourth in fleet and first on corrected time in the Group 4 fleet of keelboats.

Sailing with Teidemann were Ollie Burnell, Samantha Bailey and Charlie Connor as part of Derwent Sailing Squadron’s youth program in the high performance SB20 class, using a boat loaned to the club by prominent SB20 sailor Brett Cooper.

Under the scheme, Teidemann has been taking a crew from schools that have sailing programs, including Hutchins, St Virgils and Friends, out in Building Concepts to compete the Thursday evening racing for the SB20 class.

Yesterday, the youngsters sailed brilliantly in the 12-18 knot seabreeze on the Derwent, including beating two leading SB20 adult crews, Stephen Catchpool’s Hypertronics and Scott Brain’s Brainwave, around the course.

On corrected time, they won from the keelboats, Eliza (Kevin Jacobson) and Pirates Pride (Peter Masterton) with the other two SB20s placing fifth and sixth.

Building Concept, with Teidemann as skipper and the same crew from SBSC, will contest the SB20 Tasmanian championship to be held as part of the Crown Series Bellerive Regatta over the weekend of 22-23 February,

A fleet of nearly 50 yachts contested the Hobart combined clubs harbour series sailing for the historic Lipton Trophy as part of the 176th Royal Hobart Regatta. Winner of the prized silver trophy has yet to be announced by Derwent Sailing Squadron which conducted yesterday’s yachting.

In Group 1, Andrew Hunn and Lloyd Clark’s Farr 40 Voodoo Chile showed her speed in the lead-up to the Farr 40 class Tasmanian and Australian championships which start on the Derwent next Friday.

Voodoo Chile outsailed the fleet and on corrected time won both the PHS and IRC categories of Group 1. In the PHS category she beat TasPaints (Ian Stewart) and Nexedge (John Mills), winning IRC from Don Calvert’s Intrigue and rival Farr 40 War Games (Wayne Banks-Smith). TasPaints won the AMS category on corrected time.