Woman skipper in bid for Tasmanian Three Peaks victory

by Peter Campbell on 9 Apr 2009 Successful Hobart yacht racing skipper Dianne Barkas this weekend will attempt to achieve a history-making victory for women sailors by sailing her yacht Sullivans Cove Whisky (Asylum) to victory in the 21st Hydro Tasmania Three Peaks Race.

No woman has won the unique combination of ocean sailing and mountain running since Cathy Hawkins and Ian Johnston sailed their trimaran Verbatim to victory in the inaugural Three Peaks Race in 1989.

Barkas has already made sailing Tasmanian offshore sailing history with her Sydney 38, winning the 2008 Bruny Island Race, placing second in the 2008 Launceston to Hobart Race, and skippering an all-women crew in winning the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s Division 1 PHS Summer Pennant series for the 2008-2009 season on the Derwent.

Her crew for the Tasmanian Three Peaks Race will include one of that winning all-women crew, Heather McCallum, but the rest of the crew in the Fully Crewed division will be men – four sailors and two specialist runners.

Thirteen teams will contest the Three Peaks Race which starts from Beauty Point in the Tamar River at 2pm on Good Friday, with the Governor Peter Underwood firing the starting cannon from the Inspection Head wharf.

The 335 nautical miles of sailing will take the fleet on a course around the Tasmanian and Flinders Island coastline, with ports of call for mountain running to Mt Strzelecki from Lady Barron Flinders Island (65km), to Mt Freycinet from Coles Bay (33km) and finally the 33km climb to the peak of Hobart’s Mount Wellington and back to the finish at Sullivans Cove.

This year’s race will have separate line honours trophies for Racing Division multihull and monohull yachts, with three yachts, including Dianne Barkas’ Sullivans Cove Whisky (Asylum), David Taylor’s Sydney 36 Pisces and Rob Gourlay’s Thompson 8 Tasmarine Construction representing Hobart yacht clubs in the monohull division.

The Multihull division will be a clash between Terry Travers’ Chamberlin 11.4 Westbury/Mersey Pharmacy and Phillip Marshall’s Chamberlin 9 Neil Buckby Motors Subaru, with both skippers so far having won the Three Peaks Race five times.