46 Boats Sail through Brisbane City

by Rohan Exton on 28 Mar 2006 Forty-six sailing boats packed the Brisbane River for the Onga Pumps River Classic marathon sailing race from the South Brisbane Sailing Club to the Brisbane 18 Footers Sailing Club at Bulimba on Saturday, 18 March 2006.

A ‘fast’ and a ‘slow’ fleet started half an hour apart. The race was action packed with plenty of drama on the water, but with safety the number one priority.

Brisbane 18 Footers Sailing Club Rear Commodore Mark Jones said an accident on the start line was the biggest racing incident he had seen in many years of racing.

‘With a short start line from the shore to a buoy in the middle of the river to allow commercial river traffic to pass, and more than 20 sailing boats at each start time jostling for the best position, it was always going to be challenging getting the boats away cleanly,’ Mr Jones said.

There was a resonably large entanglement between two boats at the start of the race that resulted in one boat being retired.

‘In motor racing terms this was a ‘racing accident’, but fortunately no one was injured,’ he said.

Several other boats were tangled in the accident, but no others suffered serious damage.

Fire Ant recorded the fastest elapsed time for the race. Second and third fastest boats were the NS14s Desperado skippered by Brendan McKeown and Need for Speed skippered by Jim Reglin.

South Brisbane Sailing Club Commodore Dr Allan Clark said that the outstanding performance of the day was the South Brisbane Sailing Club fleet of Herons.

‘Fresh from their recent achievements at the Heron National Championships in January, Herons took out the first five places based on handicap corrected time,’ Dr Clark said.

‘While the course and the breeze suited the boats, it also highlighted the high skill level of sailors in our Heron fleet,’ he said.

The first three boats on corrected time were Little Red Rocket, True Colours and Just Us.

Elsewhere in the race, Lourdes Hill College fielded a fleet of five Puffin Pacers.

Mr Jones said that some of the girls had only been sailing for four weeks and did an excellent job just finishing this challenging race.

Safety and cooperation with commercial river users was a high priority for race organisers this year.

‘We have made major in-roads towards a more cooperative relationship between the commercial river users, such as the City Cats and Kookaburra River Queen paddle wheelers, and club sailors,’ Mr Jones said.

‘Our safety boats were in constant contact with the commercial users and this will be important in future years as the race gets bigger. Our ambition is to make the River Classic one of the major events on the Brisbane River, attracting boats from all four river clubs and boats from further afield,’ he said.