Ichi Ban set for Boag’s Sailing South Race Week

by Peter Campbell on 31 Dec 2006 Ichi Ban, winner of Division A in last week’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, heads the strong interstate line-up for the 2007 Boag’s Sailing South Race Week which starts on Hobart’s Derwent River on Monday, 2 January.

The first race in the six race regatta for the IRC and PHS divisions will be sailed as part of the traditional King of the Derwent, while the Cruising division will sail a separate course on the river.

With her fine performance in the Sydney Hobart, second to finish and first in IRC Division A, Ichi Ban will start as favourite to give owner/skipper Matt Allen his fourth overall win in Sailing South.

Allen, Vice Commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, has been a great supporter of Sailing South, competing with his previous Ichi Ban, the Farr 52, in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 for three overall wins and a second.

His new boat is a Volvo 70, modified since the round the world race by designer Don Jones and now described as a Jones 70. A powerful 70-footer, she features a canting keel.

His sailing master is Michael Spies, who skippered his own boats, First National Real Estate and Sirromet Life Style Wine to victory in the 2005 and 2006.

Major opposition to Ichi Ban will come from two other Sydney Hobart competitors, Flirt and Quantum Racing, and the Farr 40 One Design yachts, Euro Central, Wired and War Games that now race with the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania.

Flirt, a Corby 49 owned by Victorian yachtsman Chris Dare will have aboard as sailing master Roger Hickman, the expat Hobartian who has competed in every Sailing South Race Week since its inception in 2001.

He skippered Bumblebee 5 to victory in that inaugural regatta and was sailing master aboard Ichi Ban in her three wins.

Quantum Racing is a Cookson 50 skippered by Ray Roberts, recently named by the CYCA as Ocean Racer of the Year for 2006. Last year, he skippered his DK46, also named Quantum Racing, into second place.

Another interesting mainland competitor is Laurelle, Ray Borrett’s Farr 42, the first of a new line of production boats being built in Australia.

Hobart now has a fleet of four Farr 40s, the one-design class that is proving an excellent boat for racing on the Derwent.

Well known yachtsmen Hughie Lewis, with Euro Central and Stephen Boyes (Wired) have this summer been joined by Wayne Banks-Smith with the former Adelaide boat War Games. A fourth boat, as yet un-named, has been purchased by a group of Hobart yachtsmen, and is currently being sailed down to Hobart and is expected to arrive late today or tomorrow.

Early retirements of Endorfin and Mr Kite from the Sydney Hobart have cut the strongest ever mainland entry list for Boag’s Sailing South Race Week, but the two skippers are looking for late charters.

David Kellett, a Vice President of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) who has also been a regular competitor in Sailing South, is negotiating to sail another boat in place of Endorfin, as is Andrew Hunn, the well known Hobart yachtsman who is co-owner of Mr Kite.

Sailing South Race Week 2005 will see the return to serious racing by Mirrabooka, the yacht made famous by the late John Bennetto. Now owned by a syndicate, Mirrabooka will be skippered by co-owner Bruce Rowley, from Mittagong in NSW, with a strong Tasmanian crew.

Following Monday’s opening race as part of the King of the Derwent, the IRC and PHS fleets will sail a series of short windward/leeward harbour races and a distance races down the river and around Betsy Island in Storm Bay. The Cruising division will sail mostly distance races on the river.