Strong fleet line-up for Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta

by Peter Campbell on 2 Jun 2009 Nearly 150 women sailors, ranging in age from 16 to the late 60s, will be competing on Melbourne’s Port Phillip this coming long weekend in the Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta, sailing yachts from J24s to ocean racers.

All-women crews from Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia will be racing 20 yachts in the 19th – and expanding – annual regatta specifically for women sailors conducted by the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron at St Kilda.

Sailing a wide range of boats, the women will contest up to six windward/leeward races on the bay over the weekend, sailing under IRC, AMS and PHS handicaps.

Prominent Hobart yachtswoman Dianne Barkas will lead a crew of Tasmanian women in racing the Sydney 38 Scarlet Runner, a near identical boat to her own yacht Asylum. Dianne and her team last summer became the first all-women crew to win a Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania Pennant series on the River Derwent.

She has also had success offshore with a mixed crew of men and women, including winning the 2008 Bruny Island Race and the Fully Crewed division of the Three Peaks Race last Easter.

Her crew for Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta comprises Danielle McKay, Heather McCallum, Colleen Darcy, Noni Walters, Sally Rattle, Gemma Meincke, Lauren Davison, Louise Jackson and Caroline Walker.

'We come from three Hobart clubs, the Derwent Sailing Squadron, the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and the Bellerive Yacht Club, and are pleased to be the only fully Tasmanian crew. We have a support crew of six or seven (friends and partners) coming over, too,' Dianne said today.

In addition to Scarlet Runner, the Victorian entry Executive Decision, an Adams 10, will have some Tasmanian women in the crew, including Lisa Guy, Liz Buchanan, and Danielle Polita.

Among the leading Victorian skippers is Rosie Colahan, who will be helming her ocean racing yacht Ingenie, a Jeanneau OS 40.

She is the current holder of the Shenandoah Trophy for the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s Ocean Racer of the Year and in January sailed Ingenie into second place in PHS Division 2 of the King of the Derwent after competing in the Melbourne to Hobart East Coast Race. She has been the driving force behind a resurgence in women’s sailing at Melbourne’s Royal Brighton Yacht Club.

Representing South Australia will be Lisa Bettcher, the Sailing Administrator at the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron. She is an international level competitor and coach and one of the very few qualified international judges living in Australia.

Lisa, who will skipper the St Kilda-based Bavaria Match 38 Mrs Overnewton, gained selection during a selection weekend in Adelaide in which some 50 women sailors took part. The other women’s crew from South Australia will be skippered by Helen Willmer, helming the Dubois 34 Spellbound.

Youngest skipper in the Regatta will be 16-year-old Breanna Collins, who will skipper Mood Indigo, an S80 from the RMYS. Breanna lives at Paynesville and each weekend makes a four hour drive on the back of her father’s Harley Davidson motorbike to go sailing.

Breanna skippers her own dinghy in national level competition and in 2008, her first year in the Regatta, was on the foredeck of the winning boat Tom Cat II.