Sydney 38’s match racing to Mooloolaba

by Ian Grant on 11 Feb 2004 The highly successful Sydney Yachts One Design 38 class has introduced some interesting new boat against boat match racing to Australian offshore events and the battle to become the star performer will continue in the Sydney to Mooloolaba race.

The annual coastal passage race sponsored by Forrester Kurts Properties contested over one of the more tactically demanding courses off the Australian east coast starts on March 31st and will provide another ‘cliff hanger’ type contest in the on going battle to win class and overall IRC handicap honours.

Naturally there is a healthy atmosphere of class rivalry similar to the battle played out by the highly talented Victorian crews in Bruce Taylor’s Chutzpah and the Lou Abrahams skippered Another Challenge during the 630 n/ml Rolex Sydney Hobart race.

They had an extended duel lasting over 3 days 14 hours 20 minutes 50 seconds before Chutzpah won the class battle flag with a marginally faster 2.37 seconds per mile course time.

The margin to decide third from fourth between the New South Wales sloop Team Lexus (Rupert Henry) and Queensland’s Asylum (Wayne Kirkpatrick) was close in fact to close for the faint hearted with Team Lexus forced to apply a safe wind shadowing cover to claim third with a 0.15 second per mile speed advantage.

This has set the scene for another very interesting match race when the Sydney 38 class including the Sunshine Coast sloop Play Pen line up to contest the Sydney to Mooloolaba race which also includes the final event of the Cruising Yacht Club Of Australia’s prestigious Blue Water championship.

Naturally the skipper’s tacticians and crews are hoping for the normal south east trade wind to blow up and provide a fast spinnaker sailing race.

Grant Wharington skipper of Rolex Sydney Hobart line honours champion Skandia Wild Thing is just one skipper interested in the prevailing weather system.

Wharington and his line honours rival Sean Langman helming Grundig better known as the ocean racing skiff on steroids because of her sensational speed when racing in reaching and running winds will be hoping for a 20-25 knot ‘Southerly Buster’.

They will need these spinnaker fabric stressing winds to blow to form a match race for line honours and set a challenge in place to outpace the existing race record of 44 -01-43 set by George Snow’s Brindabella.

Both high performance blue water racing combinations have already proved they possess the speed sailing potential to easily outpace Brindabella’s 10.65 knot average but they will need the breeze to blow at the ideal spinnaker sailing angle for at least 42 hours to take the record into a new time zone.

Interest will also be focused on the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart race winner the Michael Spies skippered First National Real Estate to prove her Hobart race result on a totally different course and a possible chance to become the Blue Water champion.

As this race has proved in the past the weather systems can prove to be a tactical nightmare more particularly between the important dusk to dawn hours.

But the present activity in the monsoon could last long enough to provide the ‘grunt’ in the wind and present the fleet with a memorable south to north spinnaker sailing ride from Sydney’s North Head to Queensland’s Pt Cartwright.