NSW champions Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and Robert Bell have grabbed the lead in the Australian Championship after bringing their skiff Gotta Love It 7 home the winner of Race 2 on Sydney Harbour today.
The trio were near the lead throughout in an incident-packed race and finally crossed the finish line a 1min 6secs victor.
Omega Smeg, with replacement skipper Trevor Barnabas at the helm finished second with Rag & Famish Hotel (John Harris) a further 17secs back in third place.
Just behind the placegetters were Ssangyong Yandoo (John Winning), Club Marine (Adam Beashel), race 1 winner Asko Appliances (Hugh Stodart) and defending champion Macquarie Real Estate (Micah Lane).
Current point standing is Gotta Love It 7 on 4 points, Rag & Famish on 5, Asko Appliances 7, Club Marine 10, Ssangyong Yandoo 11 and Macquarie 13.
The race was sailed in a 20-knot North East wind and big seas and was incident-packed from the start.
First casualty was the current Giltinan (world) champion Fiat team, skippered by Michael Coxon.
Fiat was the pre race favourite but snapped a centerboard at the start and took no further part.
Asko, Ssangyong Yandoo, Gotta Love It 7 and Omega Smeg were the early leaders and maintained their advantage to the windward mark.
Asko and Yandoo went to the left under spinnakers while Gotta Love It 7 and Omega Smeg went to the right.
At the end of the run Asko held a very narrow lead over Yandoo while Omega Smeg had moved ahead of Gotta Love It 7.
There was a small break to Club Marine and Rag & Famish then another gap to Macquarie Real Estate and Maytag.
The conditions were tough as the fleet took on mounting seas.
Asko was 20secs ahead of Gotta Love It 7 at the next windward mark but her winning chances went soon after.
Stodart and his crew came off a wave and buried Asko into another before cart wheeling out of contention.
From that point Gotta Love It 7 was in control but the spectators were treated to some brilliant skills of a very talented team.
It was a great exhibition by the entire fleet as 19 of the 23 starters completed the course – although some will need gear repairs before next weekend’s race 3 of the championship.
Photographs are copyright by law. If you wish to use or buy a photograph you must contact the photographer directly (there is a hyperlink in most cases to their website, or do a Google search.) with your request.
Please do not contact
Sail-World.com
as we cannot give permission for use of other photographer’s images.
Customised news feeds -Marine Industry companies, Clubs and Associations have their own customised version of our news feed on their website. Look_here_to_see_examples
