Championship momentum builds at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week

by Lisa Ratcliff on 25 Aug 2016 After a slow start, some consistency in the breeze allowed the Australian Yachting Championship fleet to build momentum towards the windier part of Audi Hamilton Island Race Week with 20 knots plus expected for the series’ closing day on Saturday August 27, 2016.

Three windward/leewards for the two Rating Series divisions on the eastern course area started out in 10-12 knot ESE winds under overcast skies and as the day progressed the breeze turned SE and faded to 8-9kts.

Rating Passage, Racer Cruiser and Multihull Racing fleets completed an around-the-islands course and humpback whales were prodigious in number right across all racetracks covered by the 252-strong fleet.

Rating Series
Karl Kwok’s Botin 52 Team Beau Geste and Matt Allen’s Sydney based TP52 Ichi Ban were set apart from the rest of the division A fleet on the IRC pointscore, up until Allen’s fifth in the final race of the day. The result, and Beau Geste’s fourth win on corrected time, gave Kwok’s two-time Australian champion sailing for the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron some breathing room at the top of the pile.

The Duncan Hine skippered RP66 Alive is leading the ORCi pointscore and scored well today on IRC, a second, third and a fourth for the Tasmanian pocket maxi.

“We had a good day, we spent some time sandwiched between the two 100-footers,” Hine said. “If you are 66-feet and going to have your wind taken by anyone, it’s nice they are 100 footers. There was reasonably consistent breeze today, it was what we like.”

Scallywag took one line honours win from three off the Oatley family’s Wild Oats XI skippered by Mark Richards.

This evening Stephen Barlow’s Farr 40 called Forty has the luxury of a six point buffer back to Gerry Hatton’s Mat 12.45 Bushranger in Rating Series division B, thanks to three IRC short course wins in today’s light airs.

Barlow’s crew, handpicked for the championship, is stacked with talent, and so far they are proving their worth.

“I’m just the bloke that drives, they are making it go around the track,” Barlow said post racing.

“We’ve got some really good guys on the boat, Peter Gardner, Richie Allanson on main trimming, Will Parker doing headsail trim, John Flannery on the bow and Etchells sailor Mick O’Brien calling tactics. It’s a joy to sail with these guys.”

“The Farr 40s are light air rocket-ships, things might change in the passage race but with four bullets we might have enough points to squeeze by,” Barlow added.

Rating Passage Racer Cruiser
The remaining three championship fleets, Rating Passage, Racer Cruiser and Multihull Racing were late finishing their islands course on Thursday 25 August and results weren’t available at the time of writing.

Trailables
In the Trailables Division, local knowledge appears to be paying off, with Hamilton Island boat Rhumbmaid leading the Airlie Beach based High Tide in the series.

Rhumbmaid’s joint owners, all of whom drive tourist boats for a living, take their sailing seriously.

“Each day we choose our ‘designated skipper’ for the day, to ensure we’re complying with the regs,” says joint owner Ben Harper.

“We look after the boat well, so we’re still sailing with the yacht’s original sails from 1983; but since last year’s regatta we’ve had a new spinnaker made and we’re carrying that as a spare: I suspect that extra weight’s slowing us down though.”

High Tide’s skipper Shannan Hart has opted to race his own boat at this year’s record regatta.
“I’ve done Race Week many times on other people’s boats, but I thought I’d celebrate my 40thbirthday by bringing my own boat this year”, said Hart, who fitted a new carbon fibre rudder to his boat for the occasion.

On Friday August 26 the Australian Sailing Team, including the seven medallists, fresh off a plane from Rio 2016 will be honoured by Hamilton Island and their sailing peers at a public ticker-tape parade down Front Street starting at 4pm.