Manly 16ft Skiffs - Sailing gods blow Typhoons winning lead

by James Bury on 5 Oct 2010 Clint Bowen has been around sailing long enough to know no cause is hopeless, that the race is never won until the final gun sounds. But the Fluid Building Services skipper must have thought he'd cashed in his chips when Typhoon (Craig Nicholls) cleared out to a commanding three-to-four minute lead in Manly 16ft skiff Club's spring point-score race on Saturday.

That was until the sailing gods decided to turn on Nicholls and his crew. The nor' east wind, which had gusted to around 20 knots at its peak, dropped to a zephyr – and they came from everywhere to eat away at Typhoon's lead.

In a thrilling finish, Fluid got Typhoon on the line to win by a mere two seconds with Fire Stopping, skippered by world champion Malcolm Page, just 28 seconds behind in third. Nicholls rates it the closest-run race he's been involved in for two decades.

'I think he was looking in his rear view mirror and we just kept coming,' Bowen explained. 'He just got bigger and bigger (into view) and we got him right on the line.

'We never gave up but it wasn't really looking good for us when 'Ed' (Nicholls) went out to that big lead.' Nicholls expected the race to be shortened when the wind dropped but knew his heavyweight crew was in trouble when the officials ordered them to complete the course. 'We probably give 25 kilos away to those lighter crews and that played into their hands in the end.

'People say we blew it but it's pretty tough school down at Manly. We went two half an hours with the national champ and lost by two seconds, we beat the reigning state champion (Fire Stopping) and the club champion (Sutech) – that's after finishing 18th a few weeks ago. We're pretty happy with a second given all that.'

A handicap win may have softened the blow slightly for Typhoon but they were narrowly beaten there as well, trailing Net Kiosk (Gavin Cooke) by 23 seconds. JLE Electrical (Will MacKenzie) was third.