Derwent Sailing Club's autumn two-handed racing series

by Peter Campbell on 19 May 2013 A sports boat from Port Esperance Sailing Club at Dover, 83km south of Hobart, today clinched victory in the Derwent Sailing Squadron’s annual Autumn two-handed series, dubbed by local sailors as the ‘world championship’ of short-handed keelboat racing.

Temptation, helmed by Steve Harrison with Ben Morgan as his sole crew, won three of the four races sailed, today finishing fifth on corrected time on a chilly River Derwent.

A record 64 boats entered the five race series, with one race abandoned because of galeforce winds, and 40 turned out for the final race, with the average temperature in Hobart during the race just10-11 degrees.

In a fickle wind of between four and seven knots, it was a question of finding the breeze that swung from NE to SSW during the morning.

Temptation, a Thomson 7 sports boat, got a good start in Division 1 but fell into a windless hole, finishing fifth in fleet and fifth on handicap. However, she still won the series by a comfortable seven points from Hot August Night (Nat Morgan) with Planet X (Mike Rowley) third overall.

Peter Bingham’s J24, Street Car, won her third race of the series today to finish eight points clear of Vistula (Greg Biskup) with Mem, helmed by Michelle Boutchard with husband Paul as crew, third overall. Mem took fastest time and placed second on corrected time.

In Division 4, Pam (Roger Masters) finished four points clear of final race winner Tramp (Graham Watkins) with Kaiulani (Malcolm Cooper) a close third overall.

First and second placegetters in Division 4 today finished in the same order overall, Serenity (Graham Hall) taking the series from Tas Paints Too (Ian Stewart) and Divine Madness (Craig Squires).

Tasmanian champion in the SB20 class, Brainwave, skippered by Scott Brain, took out Division 4 by just one point from Karabos (Nick Rogers), third overall going to Ciao Baby III (Andrew Davison) in a closely fought series.

In the last race, Brainwave placed fourth, Karabos sixth to give Brain another major victory this past season.

Hypertronics (Stephen Catchpool) won the final race with second place going to the two-women crew of Colleen Darcy and Caroline Walker sailing Sudden Impulse.

This was Sudden Impulse’s best race of the series while for Hypertronics it was the second consecutive win.

Winter pennant racing will start next Sunday, 26 May, with the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania opening its winter club series.