Sydney 38 Stella favourite for Asian Circuit

by Al Constable on 21 Oct 2002 Sydney 38 Stella favourite for Asian Circuit

After a convincing win in the China Coast series and a second in the 355 nm Hainan Island Race, Fred Kinmonth’s Sydney 38 Stella will now start favourite for the upcoming regatta’s on the Asian circuit.

With the Kinmonth family expecting twins, Warwick Downes and Nick Burns will be campaigning Stella for the Raja Muda, the Kings Cup and the Singapore Straits regatta.

Warwick Downes explained that the Hainan Island race was an unusual race, rather than being the usual down hill slide, the wind gods deserted the fleet.

‘We went north of the rhumbline closer to the mainland expecting to see a shift and that came eventually. However the mainland shore produces its own problems, with the squid fishing boats with their big lights everywhere.

Racing conditions became difficult as the wind swung to 10 knots southerly in the early hours before dropping to 5 knots and less from the east.

Around 4am, with no moon and almost no wind, we had crew in the water clearing fishing nets from around the rudder. ‘

Ffree Fire and Stella both sat becalmed for four hours or more, so they rather share the feeling that Sydney to Hobart competitors have after sitting in the Derwent waiting for the morning breeze.

Frank Pong’s 73 footer Jelik had crossed the line before the breeze dropped to nought to record a time of 38:28:32hrs. almost eight hours outside Ffree Fire’s record. She finished 8 hours ahead of Sam Chan’s Ffree Fire, and over two hours on corrected time ahead of Fred Kinmonth’s Stella, Jelik took both line honours and a corrected time victory.

Stella was the top performing boat across the six races with four wins and two seconds.

Warwick Downes summed up ‘There was nothing we could do in the Hainan Island race, but be patient. Overall it was another good series, the boats in great shape, the D4 sails are performing well, excellent across the whole speed range.

We are looking forward to the next round of racing. With Neil Pryde’s Sydney 46 back in the fleet we will really have to be on our toes.’

IRC Results for the top five boats in the Hainan Island Race were

1 Jelik HKG600 1.46 16/10/2002 12:00:00 18/10/2002 2:28:32 38:28:32 56:10:28 1

2 Stella HKG3815 1.112 16/10/2002 12:00:00 18/10/2002 16:30:52 52:30:52 58:23:46 2

3 Elektra HKG2099 1.137 16/10/2002 12:00:00 18/10/2002 18:22:19 54:22:19 61:49:15 3

4 Polar Star IIII HKG2018 1.125 16/10/2002 12:00:00 18/10/2002 19:10:42 55:10:42 62:04:32 4

5 Ffree Fire HKG1892 1.358 16/10/2002 12:00:00 18/10/2002 10:26:30 46:26:30 63:04:04 5