14ft Skiff Australian Championship - day 3

by Di Pearson on 17 Jan 2007 With four days remaining in the 14ft Skiff Australian Championship at the International Skiff Regatta being hosted by Royal Geelong Yacht Club in Victoria, the scores are compacting and the series is sure to come to an exciting finish on Saturday.

Reigning Australian champions and yesterday’s leaders, Lindsay Irwin/Andrew Perry (Irwin Sails) from Victoria have fallen off the lead by one point to yesterday’s second overall Roger Blasse/Andrew Gilligan (Read Between the Lines) who have reversed yesterday’s overall scores to now lead their contemporaries by one point after five races and one drop.

Blasse is on seven points, Irwin seven, while yesterdays third place getter on the table, South Australians Grant Geddes/Dan Wilsdon (Boost) remain in third place, five points behind the leaders.

In a bizarre situation, Blasse won Race 4, despite hitting the pin end of the start line and having to do a penalty turn to exonerate himself. 'He did his turn, but still rounded the top mark first – amazing,' said another Victorian competitor Mark Elsworth.

Irwin finished second in that race but dropped down to fifth in Race 5, while Blasse managed a third in Race 5 to overtake the reigning champs.

Anthony Anderson/Phillip Chadwick (Ray and the Crazy 88s) currently hold down fourth place and Alex Newman/Derek Layfield (Roger Ramjet) are fifth. Both represent Victorian clubs.

Anderson and Chadwick showed great fortitude today. The pair popped the stay out of their spreader in Race 4, so capsized the boat between races, but while fixing the problem, inadvertently led the spinnaker halyard behind the spreader.

Not realising their error, reaching the second mark in Race 5 in third place, Chadwick pulled the spinnaker up behind the spreader, so had to pull it down, untie the head and throw it over the spreader, which they did successfully.

In the midst of this, the rest of the fleet gybed inside them in little breeze, so when the pair had sorted out the problem, gybed and set the spinnaker, picked up a huge squirt, went straight to the leeward mark with speed and rounded in fourth place – remarkably only losing one place, despite the time and effort involved in their little mishap. They deserve to be fourth and fit the name of their boat beautifully.

Both Races 4 and 5 were blustery, with winds exceeding 20 knots plus and a few boats suffering breakages, including one broken mast.

The 14s have a lay day tomorrow, giving a number of competitors time to repair their boats.