Tampa arrival splits fleet

by Peter Campbell on 13 May 2002 The container ship Tampa, whose rescue of asylum seekers from a sinking ship in the Indian Ocean last year caused international differences of opinion, today caused another split - that of the fleet of yachts competing in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia's BMW Sydney Winter Series on Sydney Harbour.

The Tampa, its hull shape and rusty-red colour so familiar to television news viewers, steamed up the Harbour as the fleet was running under spinnaker towards the Heads.

A third of the fleet went towards the western shore, the rest gybing towards the eastern shore, urged on by Waterways escort boats, to give the large container ship a clear passage up harbour to her berth west of the Bridge.

When the fleet converged at the Junction buoy mark, north of the Sow and Pigs Reef, there was mass confusion, with a bumping mark rounding that saw no serious damage nor any protests, only some voices raised in anguish.

It was a perfect autumn day for the Tampa to arrive, with TV news helicopters hovering overhead, in fact, a great day to be on the water apart from the lack of wind.

The light breeze swung from a westerly at the start, to a south-easterly and finally to an easterly seabreeze that never lifted above 6 knots and sometimes dropped to zero. The result was yet another shortened course for the fleet of 130 boats, with skippers resorting to downwind gyvbing to maintain boatspeed.

The keenly contested Division B saw Howard de Torres skipper his IMX-40, Nips N Tux, to a comfortable win from Neil Whiston's Sydney 38, Fruit Machine, third going to another Sydney 38, Richard Holstein's Kone Next, with the consistent Champagne on Ice (Philp and Nada Dickinson) taking fourth place.

Wollongong yachtsman Ron Ellis, who hopes to compete in next month's Brisbane to Noumea Race, sailed an excellent race with Future Shock to win Division A from Neville Crichton's Farr 40 One Design, Team Shockwave and Bob Steel's Nelson/Marek 46, Quest.

Division C saw a new competitor and a new winner in Patrick Quinlan's Flynn-Q, second place going to Hocus Pocus (M.Penny), third to Joyride (Gary McPike).

In an extraordinary close finish, Pedragon, skippered by Andrew Cochrane, won Division D from Zig Zag (Graham Thompons) by just one second, third going to the Tribal Syndicate's Speadhead, less than three minutes separating the first eight boats to finish in this division. Close astern of the top three came Foreshore, Hewlett Packard Farr Lap, Pippin, Sienna and Superfine.

Division E also saw a close finish, three minutes separating the first five finishers, with Mercury (Ken MacKenzie) winning from Possible Dream (Greg and John Barter) and Cutloose (Rob McCOnchie), followed closely by the classic Caprice of Huon and Redeemer.

Stuart Loft's Sailing Scene Seventh Wave again showed her light weather ability by scoring her second win of the BMW Sydney Winter Series in Division F, second place going to Hyper Active (Simon Laver), third to Naughty Call (Gregg Watson).

There was another close finish in Division G, with three minutes between the first five finishers, with Guy Irwin's Clewless, from the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club, winning from pointscore leader Sea Rug Hoo Ha (Peter Howes) and Spar Wars (Colonel Rod West), closely followed by Hornblower and Tui.

Then in the non-spinnaker Division J, just over one minute separated the first four boats, Wings Three (Paul Billinghm and Rob Moodie) beating Privateer (William Mirrow), Anna (Gillies & Sirett) and Riff Raff (Paul and Suzie Haas).