IRC win to Patrice Six – with aid of Tassie crew

by Peter Campbell on 5 Jan 2008 Sydney yacht Patrice Six, skippered by Tony Kirby, today clinched victory in the IRC division of the Huon Aquaculture Sailing South Regatta with a last race win – with the aid of a crew of mostly Tasmanians.

Kirby, a prominent international ocean racing sailor from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, brought Patrice Six, a Danish designed and built X-41 one design, to Hobart in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

He also entered Sailing South for the first time, but sought local knowledge of the Derwent River and southern waters by recruiting Steven Shields as tactician, along with other Tasmanians Claire Cunningham, Ben Morgan, Nick Jones, John Taton, Mark Dawson and John Lawrie.

Also in the crew were Michael Smith and Peter Hildyard from Queensland and Rowan (Disco) from Victoria.

'The crew played a great part in our victory, and it was great to be able to have aboard my good friends John Lawrie and David Cawthorn, who is confined to a wheelchair but sailed several races with us,' Kirby said.

'I inherited the sail number 360 and the name ‘Patrice’ from my father Ray, who campaigned Patrice II for the Admiral’s Cup with that sail number back in the 1970s.'

Patrice Six went into today’s final two windward/leeward races equal on 4 points with Limit, Alan Brierty’s Corby 49, skippered by Roger Hickman, after discarding their worst race.

In race four, the morning race for IRC division, Hickman powered Limit away to a fast start from the line, set by PRO ‘Biddy’ Badenach to the south-east of the John Garrow light.

Hickman quickly tacking away to the eastern shore and picked up several favourable windshifts to finish 3 minutes 22 seconds ahead of David Kellett’s Endorfin with another 2 minutes 18 seconds to Tony Kirby’s Patrice Six.

On corrected time, Limit won from Patrice Six with Endorfin (David Kellett) in third place.

This meant that in the final race Limit had to win with Patrice Six third or worse to take out the boat’s second successive Sailing South victory – she won last year as Flirt.

After a delay of one and a half hours, the fifth and final race was started in a 6 knot easterly breeze, but halfway down the second leg, the wind became extremely patchy with Limit, well in the lead, sailing into a ‘hole’ and being overtaken by Endorfin.

Skipper Roger Hickman recovered the lead on the second windward leg, but the Corby 49 did not hold a time advantage. This was compounded on the final leg to the finish of the shortened course, with Limit being brought to halt as the wind suddenly backed to the west and freshened to 20 knots.

As Hickman and his crew struggled to get the spinnaker down and the headsail hoisted, the yachts astern again closed the gap. Limit got the gun but could not beat Patrice Six, or any of the four starters in the IRC division, on corrected time.

Patrice Six won the final race from the Tasmanian yacht Silver Mist (Andrew Sutherland) and Endorfin.

The end result was that Patrice Six won the IRC division and the Charles E Davies Memorial Trophy with a final 5 points from placings of 1-1-2-2-1, from Limit on 9 points (5-2-1-1-5), third going to Endorfin on 12 points (4-3-3-3-3).

Silver Mist won the PHS Division series, sailed in conjunction, from another Tasmanian boat Pisces (David Taylor) and Patrice Six. PHS Division 2 went to Attilla (John Hunn).