Crown Series Bellerive Regatta - Youngsters showcase skill on Derwent

by Peter Campbell on 25 Feb 2013 Crown Series Bellerive Regatta 2013. Just over a month after Hobart’s biggest summer of sailing, the Tasmania’s young dinghy sailors again turned out in strength for the annual sailing battle on the Derwent, held over the weekend from Bellerive Yacht Club.

More than 80 off-the-beach boats, ranging from tiny Optimists to hull-flying B14s and Paper Tiger catamarans, joined nearly 100 keelboats, sports boats and trailable yachts for the State’s biggest sailing regatta.

Clubs from around the State supported the event, with Sandy Bay Sailing Club strongly represented by International Cadets and Optimists, the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania Dinghy Group, the Tamar Yacht Club and Kingston Beach Sailing Club adding to the Sabot, Laser and 420 fleets.

The sailing skills of the younger dinghy sailors in handling the fresh sailing breezes underlined how club coaching continues to instill good seamanship into their up-and-coming sailors.

The products of youth training programs also could be seen in adult sailors aboard the bigger boats in the Crown Series and in the crew of the Farr 40 Voodoo Chile which finished a close third in the Farr 40 nationals on a windy Sydney Harbour over the weekend.

In fact, looking through the results, it would be fair to say that most of the overall winning keelboat and sportsboat skippers in the Crown Series Bellerive Regatta began their sailing in dinghies. In the SB20s, for example, winner Scott Brain and runner-up David Graney began sailing against each other in Rainbows.

The Sabot class produced a seven race duel between Joshua Ragg sailing White Knuckle Ride and Joshua Harris, helming Guided Missile. Ragg won his fourth race to clinch a two point win from Harris who had two wins, with the pair seldom more than a few boat lengths apart.

In the Sabot development class, Nicholas Smart had three wins to take the shortened series.

Australian champion in the International Cadet class, Sam Tiedmann, helmed Phoenix to an impressive victory, notching up three wins in the seven races to take the series comfortably from last race winner Silas Hamilton, skippering Executioner, and former national champion Samantha Bailey, sailing Impulse. Close up in fourth and fifth places were Oliver Burnell (Meltemi 2) and Sam Abel (Shimmer).

Sandy Bay Sailing Club added another trophy to the weekend tally with Hugh Hickling winning every race in the Optimist class. Rupert Hamilton placed second, Charles Zeeman, third.

In the Lasers, only one point separated Tamar sailor Tom Cooper sailing his new 4.7 The Cat’s Whiskers (his previous boat, a Sabot, was called Snap-E-Tom) and Kingston Beach Sailing Club’s Gabriel Morrison, sailing 2 fast 4 u. Cooper, in his first regatta in the Laser 4.7 class, had three wins, two seconds and two thirds in an impressive debut. Third overall was Patrick Eberhard, sailing Ratsak,

The Paper Tiger catamarans from Lauderdale Yacht Club put on a good show of hull flying over the weekend with one point the winning margin for Steve Price, sailing Romper Stomper. Price won the final race to clinch victory from Andrew Barnard, sailing Mac Attack, after the two sailors were level on points after six races.

Third overall went to Bongo Fury (Oliver Bailey), fourth to Go with the Flow (Patrick Amos), just one point apart. Australian champion Bruce Rose did not compete this year as he was in Melbourne, preparing to ship his boat to New Zealand for the Paper Tiger Internationals.

Other off-the-beach winners at the Crown Series Bellerive Regatta were International 420 class newcomer Anna Vaughan, with her father Michael as crew of Feel Addicted, Robbie Hunt sailing The Hitcher in the B14 skiffs, John Genders, sailing Alibi 2 in the high flying Mothfoiler class, and Jeremy Fish, sailing XS in the Sabre class.

The NS14 class saw Katherine Davis in Fast Asleep outsail her father Peter in the N14s, while in the Sharpies, One Hump or Two (Drew Latham) won on a countback from Dump Truck (Lewis Golding).