Southern Ocean Multihull Regatta Invitational

by Media Services on 16 Jan 2006 The annual Southern Ocean Multihull Regatta (SOMR) is sure to provide some exciting racing this year with Wilparina II, a Farrier F-9R, just having installed foils and a larger canting rig is sure to make this yacht the fastest Farrier trimaran in the world; she will be up against Martyn Riley’s latest racing catamaran Raw to the Core, a Bloomfield 30, one of the first boats launched from designers Bloomfield Innovation (http://cat-plans.com), headed by Stuart Bloomfield former senior designer at Crowther Multihulls. There is a healthy fleet of trailable trimarans also contesting for the Victorian Trailerable Multihull Championship, including the hot new Corsair Sprinter, the racing version of the old F-24.

The invitation race started on time at midday in five-eight knots of breeze. Raw to the Core quickly established her dominance off the line with a good start and emerged clear leaders after the first upwind section of the race, which saw light and variable conditions combined with a strong current working against the fleet. Slick Willie, a grainger trimaran, was the second to round the top mark, revelling in the light upwind conditions and using her local knowledge to edge past some of the more favoured farrier racing machines of Red Shift, Wilparina II and the new Sprinter, who was performing well on her first outing south of the border.

The next two legs downwind and upwind continued to frustrate the fleet with some windshifts and holes making things a little trick and difficult at times, but didn’t seem to affect the order too much.

The final downwind leg saw the breeze build from the back of the fleet up to ten-twelve knots, which was enough to allow Martyn Riley on Raw to the Core to do the wild thing (fly a hull downwind) under the No.1 Spinnaker and storm home to a solid line honours victory in her maiden race.

Dale Gardner-Berry took out the performance handicap in his new Corsair Sprinter ‘Sea Sprinter’, with OMR (measured rating) honours going to Chris Culph with Slick Willie. Rob Remilton managed to haul back Slick Willie on a fast finishing Wilparina II to finish second over the line.