Winning Jnr takes home 18ft skiff trophy

by Di Pearson on 19 Jan 2007 John ‘Herman’ Winning Jnr. and his crew and his crew Anthony ‘Jack’ Young and Casey Smith on appliancesonline.com.au have taken out the 18ft skiff trophy on count back to Winnings father at the International Regatta which finished up on Corio Bay this afternoon.

This is the first time ever Herman has beaten his father John in an 18ft skiff race and now he has the main prize as well.

John Snr. (Woody) finished the Royal Geelong Yacht Club Series in second place with Ssanyong Yandoo, crewed by Andrew Hey and Drew Waller, with the Kinder Caring crew of Brett Van Munster/Paul Montague/Aiden Menzies finishing third.

Herman went into today’s final races with a small lead and Woody’s pair of second places was not enough, with Herman dropping his fourth place in the final race to claim the trophy.

The Kinder Caring crew of Brett Van Munster/Paul Montague/Aiden Menzies came from last place overall in the competition yesterday to steal third place after winning both of today’s races.

In the final Race 8, starting badly at the pin end, the crew opted to tack off to the right, while the rest of the fleet went right where there appeared to be more breeze. Van Munster and co never looked back after rounding the top mark the first time and came home for a comfortable win.

At the presentation this afternoon, Herman thanked his crew and went on to say: 'This was a great regatta and we’d love to come back. Hopefully we can make it bigger and better.'

'I’m very disappointed we couldn’t get more boats down here,' Herman’s father Woody said. 'We’re in the middle of our State Championship, so it was hard to get more boats here – we’re leaving now to get back to Sydney to compete in our next Heat of the Championship on Sunday,' he said.

Woody agreed that it was a terrific regatta. 'Great city, great bay and terrific facilities. We would have loved a bit more breeze – being so light made it hard for everyone concerned – sailors, race officials. Everyone improved their skills here though,' he said.

Woody explained to those present that the 18s are still an amateur class. The boats are owned by the 18ft skiff association and ‘loaned’ to each crew. All are a one-design built by Brett Van Munster, with the rigs coming from CST Composite – one of the other entries in the race skippered by Chris Dixon, CST’s Operations Manager.

Sail Melbourne’s new Chairman and gold medallist from the Sydney 2000 Games, Mark Turnbull, made the presentation to the top three crews and thanked all for making the effort to be part of Sail Melbourne’s International Skiff Regatta.