Inaugural Launceston to Hobart Race start report

by Peter Campbell on 29 Dec 2007
The inaugural Clive Peeters Launceston to Hobart Race down the East Coast of Tasmania started from Low Head, at the mouth of the Tamar River, on the morning of the 27th December with a fleet of 21 monohull and multihull yachts setting sailing on the 280 nautical mile course.

The start was made difficult because of the rapid outgoing tide sweeping out from the river, but no boats broke the start.

The Tasmanian boat Host Plus Executive, a Mumm 36 skippered by Geoff Cordell from the Bellerive Yacht Club, won the start and led the fleet into Bass Strait.

By mid afternoon, Host Plus Executive was maintaining its lead along the north-east coast of Tasmania towards Banks Strait, the narrow passage between the Tasmanian mainland and the Furneaux Group of islands.

Once through Banks Strait, the fleet should benefit from the strong northerly winds in the Tasman Sea as they head down the East Coast, mixing it with yachts in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race still sailing south across Bass Strait.

The only woman skipper in the race is Canadian-born Dianne Barkas who, with her American/Australian husband Roy, moved to Hobart two years ago, lured by Tasmanians they met on a skiing holiday in New Zealand.

Dianne is skippering Asylum, a Sydney 38 that raced originally with the Hamilton Island Yacht Club and is the first of the one design class to be based in Tasmania.

The Barkas are members of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and the Kettering Yacht Club, but this is Dianne’s first major bluewater race.

At the time of this report, Asylum was in sixth as the fleet sailed past the Tasmanian north-west holiday and fishing towns of Weymouth and Bridport.

The Tamar Yacht Club and the Derwent Sailing Squadron are conducting the Launceston to Hobart Race.