Alegria keeps tight grip on Australian Ocean Racing championship

by Ian Grant on 29 Jul 2009
Rod Jones continued to firm a strong grip on the prestigious 2009 Audi Australian Ocean Racing championship when he helmed his Archambault A40 sloop Alegria to an impressive third overall in Audi Sydney Gold Coast race last Tuesday.

Alegria which had won her class at the Skandia Geelong Race Week in late January followed by a brilliant class title win at the Audi Sydney Harbour regatta was expertly sailed in her first major long distance coastal passage race to complete the 384 n/ml course in 2 days 15 hours 49 minutes 34 seconds.

Her course time slowed by unstable light winds reflected the determination of the nine person crew including the Audi World Etchells champion Bucky Smith and the gifted young helmsman Sean O’Rourke who made all the smart decisions to ensure Alegria remained as a top three challenger.

Collectively they were the ‘engine room’ which continued to create the required boat speed while some of the major names in Australian offshore racing fell behind in the challenge against their individual corrected handicaps to beat the race clock.

As the hours slowly ticked by skipper Rod Jones gained further confidence and justification behind his decision to sell the high performance A35 Alegria after steering her to win the 2007 Australian championship and a sleek new Audi car at Hamilton Island Race Week.

However Rod Jones who proudly races under the Mooloolaba Dinghy Club burgee has carried Queensland to the forefront of the Australian offshore racing circuit by winning the 2007 Australian title trophy and steering the new sloop to an unassailable lead in the 2009 series.

It is never easy to part with a champion however Rod Jones remained confident that the A40 class ocean racer which had virtually the same design pedigree would allow his crew to apply their ‘sail smart’ technique with little change apart from managing more deck space.

His carefully calculated decision to step up to the A40 forced the talented team who race under the Oxygen/Oceanburo ‘battle flag’ to spend almost a full year pacing the dock before the new sloop arrived from the successful European yacht builder Bateaux/Archambault.

They missed the chance to defend their championship in 2008 but the patient wait has had the rewards after the Alegria crew claimed a career best overall result in the Audi Sydney Gold Coast race when they crossed the Main Beach finish line at 4-49 last Tuesday morning.

Their race average hampered by unusually light winds was only .4 knots slower than AFR Midnight Rambler which was expertly raced by co owners Ed Psaltis of Sydney and Bob Thomas (Mackay) who in 1998 sailed through the Southern Ocean cyclone to win the 628 n/ml Rolex Sydney Hobart race.

A margin of only 24 minutes and 37 seconds separated the top three on corrected handicap with AFR Midnight Rambler outpacing her 1.163 rating to beat the recently launched Sydney 36 cruiser/racer Aileron (Henk Wellerman) by 29 seconds or .075 seconds per n/ml while Alegria was only 4.32 seconds per n/ml of the pace.