‘Invincible' Invincible King of the Derwent 2010 – again!

by Peter Campbell on 2 Jan 2010
Veteran Bellerive Yacht Club member Harold Clark today began yet another decade of winning harbour races in Hobart with his appropriately named, always well-sailed yacht Invincible, winning the 2010 Sargisons Jewellers King of the Derwent Race.

The Farr 1104 sailed through a 35-40 knot rain squall to convincingly take out the iconic race, sailed each year on Hobart’s River Derwent in the wake of the ocean races from Sydney, Melbourne and Launceston.

The squall, that swept down from Mount Wellington 20 minutes after the start of the 18 nautical mile race around the harbour, almost immediately forcing 14 of the 47 starters to retire, including last year’s winner, Voodoo Chile.

The King of the Derwent is decided on IRC handicap results, with Invincible winning the division by 6 minutes 44 seconds from Archie, Sally Rattle’s Archambault 35, from the conducting club, the Derwent Sailing Squadron.
Third overall in the IRC division was David Creese’s DK46 Dekadence.

However, Sally got a bonus, as the first woman on IRC corrected time, she received the sponsor’s special prize – a $2000 diamond pendant.

A second diamond pendant was won by Sue Windas, a crew member of LOYAL, the line honours winner of the King of the Derwent Race.

Invincible also won the AMS division from two Victorian yachts, Ingenue (Rosie Colahan) and Godzilla (Tom Fowler), again by more than six minutes on corrected time.

This is Invincible’s fifth win in the King of the Derwent, having previously taken out the coveted title in 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2000.

Overall winner of the PHS division was another local yacht, Helsal III, skippered by Rob Fisher from the RYCT.

The Sargisons Jewellers King of the Derwent also decided the Sovereign Series and Salamanca Series for the ocean races from Melbourne, the West Coaster and the East Coaster, and the Tasports Series for yachts that contested the Sargisons Launceston to Hobart Race.

The Heemskirk Salamanca East Series, comprising the Cock of the Bay on Melbourne’s Port Phillip, the M2H East Coast race and the King of the Derwent was won by Phil Simpfendorfer’s new Greg Elliott-designedd 44-footer Veloce. The Sovereign Series, comprising the Cock of the Bay, the M2H West Coaster and the King of the Derwent, was won by Audacious’s Greg Clinnick’s Sydney 38 from Royal Brighton Yacht Club.

The Tasports Series for aggregate points in the Sargisons Launceston to Hobart, including the Beauty Point to Low Head dash, and finally, today’s Sargisons King of the Derwent saw a win to Pisces (David Taylor) in IRC and Whistler (David Rees) in both the PHS and AMS categories.