Sail-World.com : A welcome escape from the ‘summer blues’
A welcome escape from the ‘summer blues’
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'Wobbly Boot'
Ian Grant
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Airlie Beach and Pioneer Bay - recognised as Queensland’s most popular tropical sailing destination has the reputation to become a tactically tough racing venue during the warmer months of summer.
The combination of warm temperatures and a reliable sailing breeze blowing across Pioneer Bay provides the Whitsunday Sailing Club’s Tropical shirt sailors with a welcome escape from the ‘summer blues’.
However the wind failed to reach a peak gust of eight knots when the competitive fleet faced the start for the first race of the Edge’s Boat Yard aggregate point series on a near windless Pioneer Bay.
It is rare for the crews to race in a soft and tactically testing breeze; however they were forced to bring their light wind skills out to play.
As to be expected the race proved to be a supreme test of concentration to produce the required all angle sailing speed to outsail their respective corrected handicaps.
Some mastered the challenge while others including the Craig Piccinelli skippered Wobbly Boot which recorded a runaway win in the Edge’s Boat Yard yacht of the year for 2012 finished eighth 15 minutes and 25 seconds astern of corrected handicap winner the John Galloway skippered Queensland Marine Services.
Skipper John Galloway and crew did no harm to their respected reputation when they became locked into a duel with the higher handicapped Swan 45 Tulip (Bernie Van’t Hof), and the Charles Wallis helmed Murray, Burns and Dovell designed Reignition.
The Tulip crew progressively secured a firm grip of the line honours by selecting the best options from the breeze that blew over the deck and her owner skipper remained confident of steering the sloop to a rare line and handicap win after they handed the fleet a light wind sailing lesson with a runaway seven minute, eight second line honours win over Reignition.
As the seconds ticked away it seemed that the Tulip crew had outpaced their 1.180 time correction factor but the Queensland Marine Services crew spoilt the post race celebrations for the Tulip crew when they managed to record the faster corrected course time with two seconds to spare leaving skipper Bernie Van’t Hof to hold the second best handicap result one minute, two seconds ahead of Reignition.
by Ian Grant
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http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=104758
10:03 PM Sun 16 Dec 2012GMT
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