Nothing tactically amiss in the Asylum

by Ian Grant on 10 Aug 2003 Three years ago when Wayne Kirkpatrick stepped behind the wheel of his Sydney 38 Asylum the fleet peers regarded him as the new boy on the block.

Now they have to accept that three years of adjusting to a steep learning curve and the will to spend time on the water with his crew of Whitsunday Island sailors is about to be rewarded.

Asylum a heat winner in the 2002 Hog’s Breath Australian championship has turned into the class pace setter in the 2003 Pan Pacific championship over the Whitsunday Sailing Club courses.

Sure the racing environment is very familiar but the Asylum crew had to make an eleventh hour crew change moving the lightweight Aaron Linton from the bow into the tactician’s role.

This has not been the single trump card played by the Asylum skipper, the results have been very much a show of class winning the first two light wind races to lead the series with a 1-1-3 score over the class masters Lou Abrahams and his Another Challenge crew 3-2-2 and The Bigger Picture 4-5-1.

Results of all the races in this strict clone class are not created from luck but more like good management and understanding how to extract the best boat speed from the prevailing winds.

The Asylum crew have sailed endless hours on these waters to express this experience into points on the championship score board.

But a 2 point advantage can be placed in damage control with the simplest of mistakes and the Asylum will have to make sure they stay clear of any tactical errors in the remaining races to beat the national Class champion Another Challenge.

In the three races so far Asylum with her 5 hour 49 minute 58 second elapsed aggregate has proved to be the fastest over Another Challenge by 1 minute 32 seconds which indicates this championship battle is far from over.