Summer season opens at Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron

by Peter Campbell on 31 Aug 2012 Tomorrow will start Australia’s senior yacht club, the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, 151st year of yacht racing on Sydney Harbour with more than one hundred boats entered for the summer season.

The Squadron celebrated its sesquicentenary with a garden party for members on the lawns of its Kirribilli clubhouse, Carabella, in July, but tomorrow members are back to keen competition on the Harbour in boats that range from the Etchells, Dragon and Yngling one-design classes through to four divisions of racer/cruiser yachts.

While club racing numbers have increased the Squadron will be having a quieter summer after last season conducting world championships for the International Etchells and International Yngling classes.

The Etchells will once again be the biggest fleet with 26 boats entered, while the evergreen Dragon class has attracted eleven entries, with more expected as this summer the Prince Philip Cup will be sailed in Sydney, probably on Botany Bay.

Division 1 has attracted 15 entries, headed by Charles Curran’s 60-footer, Sydney. The fleet includes three newcomers to Division 1: RSYS member Andrew Parkes; X-412, Xeme, and two boats owners by Cruising Yacht Club of Australia members, Matthew Brown’s Shaw 10, Orbit, and Damien Parkes’ JV52, Duende.

Division 2 has seen a major increase in fleet size for this season, with 16 yachts nominated, including newcomers L’Eau, Grant Pollock’s Northshore 38 from the CYCA; Greg Mason and Barb Maunsell’s Davidson 37, Sinewave, from Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club; and Graham Thompsons’s J35, Zig Zag 2, from the CYCA.

Division 3, which includes a number of older ‘one tonners’, has drawn eleven entries, including last year’s pointscore winner Tingari, John Jeremy’s East Coast 31, and Jim Dunstan’s Currawong 30, Zeus II, which won the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race back in 1981. She is one of the smallest yachts ever to win the race on corrected time.

Division 4 is a mixed fleet of smaller racer/cruisers, with the fleet again including last season’s champion, Steve Sweeney and Murray Begg’s Bonbridge 27, Hornblower (in which the writer still has an interest although living in Hobart) and lady skipper Cheryn Croker with Daydream.

The International Dragon fleet looks set for keen competition this summer with the prestigious Prince Philip Cup ahead of the fleet that includes Shapes (Wolf Breit), Riga (Martin Burke) and Indulgence (Robert Alpe).

The Yngling fleet so far totals only six boats so far, but class officials expect late entries to swell numbers that already include Hamish Jarrett’s Miss Pibb, Gary Wogas’ Karma and Mel Nathan and Robyn Grosvenor’s Slam.

In addition to club racing, the RSYS will conduct a number of mini-regattas for the one-design classes as well as its traditional short ocean races for the Morna Cup, Gascoigne Cup and Milson Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron website