International 420 Class Nationals 2012 - Gilmours' legacy continues

by Peter Campbell on 1 Jan 2013 Lachlan Gilmour, younger son of America’s Cup helmsman and world match racing champion Peter Gilmour, is following in the illustrious wake of his father in the International 420 class Australian championship on Hobart’s River Derwent.

Gilmour and his crew, Thomas Blaauw, from the Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club in Perth, yesterday moved up to a challenging second place in the 420s, maintaining a consistent scorecard of 6-2-2-4-7 placing.

They are on 21 points, only four points behind Xavier Winston-Smith and Joshua Dawson from the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club in Sydney who have had a score of 4-3-4-2-4 to be on 17 points.

The shock of the day was the mediocre performance of Tasmanians Alec Bailey and Douglas Shephard who won two of the three races on Sunday.

Yesterday, they were right off the pace with a 15th and a 17th in the 24 boat fleet and have dropped from first to seventh in standings.

In addition to Gilmour and Blaauw, WA crews from RFBYC are doing well in the championship, which leads up the Australian Youth Championships in January, also in Hobart.

In third place overall on 34 points are Emerson Carlberg and George Boulden who had an impressive first and a third yesterday while the other winning crew were William Boulden and Nicholas Gale whose other placing yesterday was a sixth.

The second Tasmanian crew in the 420 championship is Jonathan Cooper and Aleksandrs Price who are 14th overall.

Racing continues today, 1 January with a lay day tomorrow for the King of the Derwent.