Upsets in second last race-Sailing South Race Week

by Peter Campbell on 5 Jan 2007 The dominance of visiting yachts in the 2007 Boag’s Sailing South Race Week ended in this morning’s race five, the second last of the six-race regatta, sailed in a light breeze on Hobart’s River Derwent.

Winner of the IRC division with her best performance of the week, was X-Rated, an X-42 skippered by David Creese, with second place going to the MBD 36 Creative In-Tension, skippered by David Rees and third to the newly-launched Farr 42 Laurelle, skippered by Victorian Ray Borrett.

Pointscore leader Flirt, the Corby 49 owned by Victorian Chris Dare, placed fourth to maintain her overall first place, but closest rivals Ichi Ban, Matt Allen’s Jones 70 and Quantum Racing, Ray Roberts’ Cookson 50 placed 9th and 10th respectively.

The provisional pointscore with one windward/leeward race to sail, has Flirt on 9 points after one discard, with Ichi Ban and Quantum Racing equal second 12 points, Wired (Stephen Boyes) on 15 points and X-Rated on 18 points.

The start of race five was delayed for 35 minutes when the light southerly change swung to the south-east at 8-10 knots with Euro Central, Flirt and Creative In-Tension getting the best starts, Ichi Ban electing for a conservative start.

Ichi Ban was quickly into the lead and, despite the light breeze, was more that six minutes of Quantum Racing at the leeward mark after the first two legs of the 12 nautical mile course.

Flirt had excellent windward and leeward legs to be round the bottom mark only 26 seconds astern of Quantum Racing. However, Flirt’s headsail was late in being hoisted and was a full minute after rounding the mark that her headsail was fully trimmed.

Sailing its best race of the series was the newly launched Farr 42 Laurelle, skippered by Victorian Ray Borrett.

She was only four minutes astern of Flirt at the first leeward mark, closely followed by the three Tasmanian Farr 40s, Euro Central, Wired and War Games, in that order and only 43 seconds apart.

With the breeze easing away to 5-6 knots, Principal Race Officer Robert ‘Biddy’ Badenach shortened the course to two laps (8 nautical miles), with Ichi Ban sailing the course 12 minutes 55 seconds ahead of Quantum Racing which opened up her lead over Flirt to 1 minute 37 seconds at the finish.

The three Farr 40s staged a classic one-design finish, with War Games beating Wired across the line by 5 seconds and Euro Central 12 seconds further astern. Laurelle dropped back from fourth to seventh at the finish.

Tasmanian boat Creative In-Tension sailed a good race to finish eighth across the finish line and this was reflected in her second place overall.

In the PHS division, provisional placings in race five saw first place go to Moonshine (Bruce Palmer) from the veteran Mirrabooka (Eddy Hidding, Bruce Rowley and Mike Wearne) and X-Rated. A protest is likely in this race over PHS results.

Race six, the final race of 2007 Boag’s Sailing South Race Week, stared in a sou’sou’-easterly breeze of 8-10 knots with the two Farr 40s Wired and Euro Central getting good starts. Within minutes Wired attempted to go right on port tack but was forced to tack again by Euro Central on starboard.

The boats that went right did exceptionally, not only gaining a significant lift but also picking up a stronger breeze at 12-14 knots, forcing Ichi Ban to make a long tack back from the eastern shore.