Etchells World Championships – Close finish on day 1

by RHKYC Media on 2 Nov 2015 Racing in the 47th Etchells World Championships got underway in earnest this morning, with Principal Race Officer Kevin Wilson choosing to start racing on schedule, with the signal boat situated just off the north west of Ninepins.

43 Etchells started this year’s World Championships in 10 to 12kts of true northerly, on a flat 1.8nm course. Both Swiss entry No Dramas and Australian entry, Highlander, were over at the start, but returned and cleared the line.

After a 23 minute beat, Steve Benjamin’s Scimitar was the first of an evenly split fleet to reach the windward mark, ahead of Aretas, Phan and Jezebel.

With fishing boats and freighters adding a little local colour, the fleet continued to use the whole expanse of the race course on the first run, splitting equally around the port and starboard gate marks with Scimitar holding onto her position.

Helm of Aretas, Skip Dieball, finished in second place, ruing a poor start and saying “it was very tight racing at the top end, with boats switching (places) all the time. The one who made the most gains was Marvin Beckmann, who was back in eighth at one point (but finished fifth)”

Winner Benjamin confirmed the switching places, noting that Scimitar’s “game plan was to go right as the wind would veer right based on the predictions we looked at – we were not in the big packs so we had clean air and we wanted to control the right, so we tacked on to port. We got around the first mark clear and were clear downwind – there was a lot of tacking up the second beat, which was very variable. We got passed by two boats on the left, but crossed them at the end of the beat and we were able to hold on to the downwind leg.”

With only five minutes between winner and tail end boat, it was a close finish, with Scimitar coming in ahead of Aretas, Jezebel, Gen XY and The Martian.

With a shifting and weakening breeze, after two AP’s and a general recall, Wilson finally called it a day and hoisted AP over A, stating his intention to shoe-horn two races into the day two schedule, with the first warning signal sounding at 1100hrs.

Rank	Sail No.	Yacht Name	Skipper	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	Total	Nett
First	1262	SCIMITAR	Steve Benjamin	4	(1.0)									1.0	0.0
Second	1372	Aretas	Jon McClean	3	(2.0)									2.0	0.0
Third	1333	Jezebel	Peter Backe	3	(3.0)									3.0	0.0
Fourth	864	Gen XY	Matthew Chew	4	(4.0)									4.0	0.0
Fifth	1378	The Martian	Marvin Beckmann	4	(5.0)									5.0	0.0
Sixth	1351	PHAN	Jeremy Thorp	3	(6.0)									6.0	0.0
Seventh	1410	Swedish Blue	Ante Razmilovic	3	(7.0)									7.0	0.0
Eighth	1400	African Queen	Jan Muysken	3	(8.0)									8.0	0.0
Ninth	1375	1375	Argyle Campbell	4	(9.0)									9.0	0.0
10th	947	Magpie	Graeme Taylor	3	(10.0)									10.0	0.0
11th	1269	DreamOn	Greg Farrell	4	(11.0)									11.0	0.0
12th	1348	The HORN	Dirk Kneulman	3	(12.0)									12.0	0.0
13th	1292	AUS 1292	Matthew Ramaley	3	(13.0)									13.0	0.0
14th	1422	Land Rat	John Warlow	3	(14.0)									14.0	0.0
15th	1339	Freelance	Laurence Mead	4	(15.0)									15.0	0.0
16th	1226	Baby Doll	Noel Drennan	3	(16.0)									16.0	0.0
17th	991	The Boat	Jake Gunther	3	(17.0)									17.0	0.0
18th	1335	Free Advice	Robert Hanna	3	(18.0)									18.0	0.0
19th	1345	Wanchai Belle	Jamie McWilliam	3	(19.0)									19.0	0.0
20th	1403	No Dramas	Seamus McHugh	3	(20.0)									20.0	0.0
21st	1406	Racer X 2	Mark Thornburrow	4	(21.0)									21.0	0.0
22nd	1015	Matatu Dubh	James Downer	3	(22.0)									22.0	0.0
23rd	1412	Tiburon	Mark Watson III	3	(23.0)									23.0	0.0
24th	1354	Strait Dealer	David Franks	4	(24.0)									24.0	0.0
25th	1364	1364	Frank van Kempen	4	(25.0)									25.0	0.0
26th	903	The Battler	Michael Coates	3	(26.0)									26.0	0.0
27th	1329	Stampede	Rob Goddard	3	(27.0)									27.0	0.0
28th	1180	Fuzzy Duck	Michael Haehnel	3	(28.0)									28.0	0.0
29th	1391	Tango	Chris Hampton	3	(29.0)									29.0	0.0
30th	1344	Mind The Bumps	Alastair MacAulay	3	(30.0)									30.0	0.0
31st	1235	Reprobate	Mark Parker	3	(31.0)									31.0	0.0
32nd	1150	Chelsea Lady	Bill Steele	3	(32.0)									32.0	0.0
33rd	957	Kirribilli	Doug Flynn	3	(33.0)									33.0	0.0
34th	884	Easy Tiger	Marty Kaye	3	(34.0)									34.0	0.0
35th	868	YANDOO XX	Jeanne-Claude Strong	4	(35.0)									35.0	0.0
36th	1193	Diva Deux	Mark Yeadon	3	(36.0)									36.0	0.0
37th	511	Grand V	Stephen Ingate	3	(37.0)									37.0	0.0
38th	882	Jukes of Hazzard	Brendon Jukes	4	(38.0)									38.0	0.0
39th	1356	Highlander	Martin Webster	4	(39.0)									39.0	0.0
40th	1047	Incoming	Ian Fleming	4	(40.0)									40.0	0.0
41st	938	The Answer is...	Charlie Manzoni	4	(41.0)									41.0	0.0
42nd	1358	Are We There Yet	Thomas Cheung	4	(42.0)									42.0	0.0
43rd	992	China White	Nicholas Stagg	3	(43.0)									43.0	0.0