Sydney 47CR's lead Premier Cruising

by Peter Shaw on 21 Aug 2006 Two Sydney 47CR’s, Graeme Woods Wot's Next and Paul Clitheroe's Balance are leading Hamilton Island’s Premier Cruising division coming first and second respectively.

Graeme Wood successfully launched his accommodation site Wotif on the Australian stock exchange this year. ‘It’s been a big, big year; I have been really looking forward to coming up here to race and relax.'

On the first day, Wot's Next was pinned under Lachlan Murdoch’s Swan 82 Ipixuna for ten minutes, but managed to escape to win the race on handicap and now leads the Division with a perfect score so far.

Clitheroe’s new Sydney 47CR named Balance, the same as his previous Beneteau 40.7, has placed third and second in the two races, her first ever since being launched just last month.

Balance has led Wot’s Next out of both the downwind Dent Island passage starts but the experience of the Wot’s Next team with their boat, have seen them lead Balance into the finish.

In yesterday’s Club Marine Edward Island Race for ten miles the two boats went up wind, just 30 meters apart. Martin 'Tacka' Thompson commented; 'Wot’s Next was going faster than us upwind after we turned the corner and we had to keep tuning Balance up to match them. It's great to have such a good sparring partner so close and it is great we can take a boat in its first race and get up to speed so quickly. The result is some great racing and we are both pushing each other up the course faster than if we were there by ourselves.'

Thompson continued, ‘Reaching home yesterday towards the end of the long race Balance went from a jib sail in 70 degrees true, to a jib-top and the boat loves the bigger sails forward being so stiff. Adding a genoa staysail added another half a knot and we were reaching home doing 10 knots with a double head rig in perfect conditions in the late afternoon sunshine and it was perfect.'

'We wondered about the Beneteau 47.7’s but beat them home by about 27 minutes in eight hours, which was more than enough to seal the IRC 1, 2 result. It was a great result as we actually spent the whole downwind legs running and had this been the normal reaching conditions across from Coppersmith the margin would have been much bigger.'

Clitheroe has been enjoying the week. ‘It’s just great we’ve been able to come up to speed so fast. This is such a responsive boat, its great to steer. The biggest problem I’ve had so far has been getting distracted, watching humpback whales.’

However the Beneteau First 47.7's, Colin Wood's Pretty Fly II and Ross Wilson's Eagle Rock are likely to provide a stiff challenge as the week progresses.

Series Place	Sail No	Boat	Type of Boat	Class	Owner	Handicap	Series Points	Race 1 South Molle/Daydream Island Race	Race 2 Club Marine Edward Island Race
1	6559	Wots Next	Sydney 47 CR	PCR	Graeme Wood	1.176	2	1	1
2	7771	Balance	Sydney 47CR	PCR	Paul Clitheroe	1.181	5	3	2
3	8924	Pretty Fly II	Beneteau 47.7	PCR	Colin & Gladys Woods	1.135	7	2	5
4	7744	Eagle Rock	Beneteau 47.7	PCR	Ross Wilson	1.132	7	4	3
5	80004	Ipixuna	Swan 82 FD	PCR	Rollo Parks	1.374	10	6	4
6	8181	Espresso Forte	Farr 16.9m	PCR	Laurence Freedman	1.254	11	5	6
7	8885	Free Spirit	Jeanneau SF 52	PCR	Stephen Girdis	1.156	14	7	7
8	100	Escape	Jeanneau S/O 49	PCR	Graham Jones	1.099	16	8	8
9	B7766	Lady Godiva	Swan 60	PCR	David Currie	1.155	18	9	9
10	6037	Eureka II	Sydney 60 (mod)	PCR	Malcolm Robertson	1.276	20