RYCT announces new Three Islands Offshore Championship

by Peter Campbell on 22 Sep 2010 Three Islands Offshore Championship - The revived Mewstone Race, along with the traditional Maria Island and Bruny Island Races, will form the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s inaugural Three Islands Offshore Championship this coming season.

The three ocean races, off the rugged coastline of south-eastern and southern Tasmania, also will be part of the Combined Clubs Offshore Series for 2010-2011 that starts with Bellerive Yacht Club’s Night Race on Wednesday, 20 October.

Competing yachts in the Three Islands Offshore Championship will be fitted with satellite tracking devices to enable race officials, the media and the public to follow the yachts in real time. Negotiations are alos under way with local television stations for yachts to carry cameras on board to record the ocean racing around the unique coastline of Tasmania.

The Three Island Offshore Championship will start with the Tasports 63rd Maria Island Race, starting from Hobart on Friday, 19 November, and taking the fleet down the River Derwent and across Storm Bay, rounding Tasman Island and then up the East Coast to round historic Maria Island, then back to Hobart.

The 189 nautical mile race is a qualifying race for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race and the Sargison Jewellers/Natuzzi Launceston to Hobart Race. It is open to eligible monohull and multihull yachts, with IRC, AMS and PHS handicap categories. However, multihull boat owners seeking to race must obtain permission from the RYCT.

The Mewstone Race, which will take yachts down to the ‘Roaring Forties’ along the rugged southern coast of Tasmania, will start on Friday evening, 21 January, so that yachts arrive at the Mewstone in daylight as the rocky islet has not light. Skippers have the option of whether they sail through the d’Entrecasteaux Channel or on the seaward side of Bruny Island to reach The Mewstone, located at 43.52 degrees South.

The 170 nautical mile race around this rugged outcrop of rock was last held in 1985. The veteran Hobart yacht Natelle II won that year, skippered by John Solomon, and present owner Glenn Roper has invited Solomon to join him in contesting the revived race in 2011.

The third and final race in the RYCT Three Islands Offshore Championship will be Tasmania’s oldest long distance race, the offshore/inshore Bruny Island Race, starting on Saturday morning, 12 February 2011.

The 89 nautical mile race Bruny Island Race was first held in 1898 by the RYCT and for the first 30 years was known simply as ‘The Ocean Race.’

This will be the 85th Bruny Island Race, sailing the same course set by the RYCT 113 years ago, from Hobart’s Castray Esplanade down the River Derwent to circumnavigate the elongated island. Race officers decide on the day whether to send the fleet firstly down the inshore d’Entrecasteaux Channel or down seaward side in the Tasman Sea.

Last year, principal race officer Captain Roger Martin reversed the direction of more recent past races by sending the fleet down the Channel first and then up the seaward coast of Bruny Island.

Line honours last year went to Andrew Hunn’s Mr Kite while David Bean’s Auch won the premier IRC division. Sally Rattle’s Archie took out the new AMS division while Todd Leary’s She’s the Culprit won the PHS division.

www.ryct.org.au