Whitsunday Sailing Club's John Galloway lays down the gauntlet

by Ian Grant on 1 Mar 2010 John Galloway has laid down the gauntlet with an iron fist in a major bid to dominate the Whitsunday Sailing Club short course twilight racing series on Pioneer Bay.

He and his Queensland Marine Services crew gained regular top three results throughout 2009 and have continued the consistency in the first two months of 2010 to be currently involved in a close tussle for supremacy with the equally well sailed Surefoot.

The Rod Sawyer helmed Surefoot with a win in the Airlie Sails series and second in the February series for the Shute Harbour Slipways trophy presently holds the ‘bragging rites’ with a 1-2 compared with Queensland Marine Services 3-1.

However the Queensland Marine Services crew narrowly hold the faster corrected time aggregate of 17.4 seconds over the past seven races.

This suggests that skipper John Galloway and the Queensland Marine Services crew are again well poised to be a front runner to claim the best aggregate score when the final of the monthly series is decided in December.

Meanwhile the crafty tactician John Galloway will be kept busy protecting his reputation against a strong list of challengers including Surefoot; the Craig Piccinelli skippered Wobbly Boot, and the match racing Space sailors Sandpiper (Colin Pruden) and Idle Time (Kevin Fogarty).

All five crews are naturally protective of their sailing space however they will need to pay special attention to producing the required all angle boat speed to finish ahead of their handicap correction factor.

This is never easy with so many different designs racing against each other for the honour of setting the fastest corrected handicap course time.

Both Rod Sawyer and John Galloway head the leader board but they can expect to face increasing tactical pressure when the battle lines are drawn for first race of the Hog’s Breath Saloon series this week.

Naturally the persistent nature of the wet monsoon will play a tricky role in the result forcing all skippers, tacticians and crews to be ‘up to speed’ with the wind velocity that blows over the deck.

The month of March has previously proved to leave some reputations in damage control and this week’s opening race will be no exception with the forecast of a fickle sea breeze expected to sort the best from the rest.

However the difficult and unpredictable weather system is not expected to test the present form of Surefoot and Queensland Marine Services who have mastered a mixed bag of sailing conditions over the past two months.

They are again expected to set the pace while interest will also surround the improving course time set by the Terry Archer skippered Questionable Logic when they won the line and handicap double two weeks ago.

A repeat performance from Questionable Logic will add further interest to the battle for the Hog’s Breath Saloon trophy while the pacesetters Surefoot and Queensland Marine Services continue with their boat on boat match race to control the seasons points table.