Southport Skipper prepares for Match Race

by Ian Grant on 11 Mar 2008
Southport Yacht Club ocean racing sailor Matthew Percy has done the hard yards to qualify as the favourite to win the Beneteau 44.7 class match race in the 60th anniversary Brisbane to Gladstone classic over the Easter weekend.

Skipper Percy and his Alacrity crew proudly flew the distinctive Southport Yacht Club burgee in the 2007 Rolex Sydney Hobart classic finishing 20th overall and third in their division behind Mr Beaks Ribs and the 1998 Hobart Race champions Ed Psaltis and Bob Thomas in AFR Midnight Rambler.

Their corrected IRC handicap course time of 4 days 27 minutes 39 seconds was an impressive result however skipper Percy has moved on focusing his personal skill on helming Alacrity to another top result in Queensland’s premier blue water classic starting off the historical Sandgate Pier at 11 am on Good Friday March 21st.

The Alacrity crew buoyed by their Hobart race success will be in racing mode engaged in a match race against the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron sloops On Ya Va (Paul Freeman) and the Tam Faragah/ Paul Bright skippered Ultimate Positioning seconds after the firing of the start signal.

All three yachts are basically identical and the race result to win the first to finish honour in the class will become intensely competitive over the 308 nautical mile course.

Alacrity deserves to start as the favourite but skipper Matt Percy will need to compete with a water tight tactical plan to maintain the required boat speed to beat On Ya Va and Ultimate Positioning to the finish line off Gladstone’s Auckland Creek.

Both the On Ya Va and Ultimate Positioning skippers and tacticians will formulate their race strategy around match racing Alacrity.

'There is no doubt that Alacrity will be a marked boat as far as our race is concerned, they stitched us up by just over 90 minutes last year which leaves us with some work to do'. Paul Bright said.

It will be a tough chase made tougher as the Alacrity crew have improved since Easter 2007 and they are confident of beating their 33 hour 39 minute 30 second course time which means both On Ya Va and Ultimate Positioning will need to log an average speed above 9.15 knots to win the tactical arm wrestle and the bragging rights as the best in their class.