Lisa Blackwood wins women’s fleet racing in Hobart

by Peter Campbell on 24 May 2009 Experienced Hobart woman sailor Lisa Blackwood made a clean sweep of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s women’s fleet racing regatta, sailed on the River Derwent recently.

Lisa, who sailing interests have ranged from crewing on a Sabot at the age of six to sailing high performance Lasers, Sharpies and Windsurfers, keelboats and radio controlled yachts, won all six heats with her crew of Karina Tarbath and Rebecca Dunn.

Until recently the vice-commodore of the Derwent Sailing Club and a windsurfing coach at the Seoul Olympics, Lisa’s current sailing mainly centres on radio controlled yachts, in which she is a former Australian champion.

'I’m off to Barbados in a month’s time to contest the world championship in the International 1 Metre Class,' she said after accepting the Sargisons Jewellers perpetual trophy at the RYCT.

Lisa comes from a wellknown Tasmanian sailing family; her father Graham Blackwood being a past Commodore of Derwent Sailing Squadron and President of the Australian Yachting Federation (Now Yachting Australia).

Karina is an experienced keelboat sailor from Bellerive Yacht Club, while Rebecca recently moved to Hobart from Sydney where she sailed Elliott 6 sports boats with the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Youth Sailing Academy.

Rebecca, who is completing her PhD in naval architecture in Hobart and is currently studying wave slamming on Incat catamarans, has crewed in the CYCA crew skippered by Amanda Scrivenor that finished runners-up in the Australian women’s match-racing championships in 2008.

With the women enjoying a perfect Hobart autumn day, warm and sunny with a northerly breeze that ranged from eight knots to 12 knots, Lisa and her crew showed outstanding tactical and sail-handling skills in the RYCT’s Elliott 5.9 sports.

The only three-woman crew, they finished with six points, second place going to Lisa Guy and her crew of Liz Buchanan, Daniella Polita and Janene Frawley on 14 points, third to Katie Hill, Esme Van Wijk, Bernadette Sloyan and Clothilde Langlais on 22 points.

Gemma Mincke and her crew of Amy Van Gagen, Kaitlin Drury and Pip Zabo finished fourth on 23 points, with Jessie Atherton and crew of Jenny Graney, Katherine Maher and Ann Reynolds fifth on 25 points.

Race officer Roger Martin said that while one of the crews had had spinnaker problems, and there were a couple of mark-rounding incidents, the standard of sailing was excellent.

'Lisa Blackwood won the first five races by comfortable margins, but there was only 10 seconds between her and Lisa Guy’s crew in the final race,' Martin added.