Skiffs Parramatta River Championship - Gemmell Sails survives carnage

by Nick Press on 10 Nov 2010 Murray Press and Ben Gemmell managed to avoid some early carnage on the first down wind leg of the Parramatta River Championship, to go on a record a comfortable victory.

The Garde crew of Brett Hobson and Alex Johnson in their new skiff picked up second from LCC (Jonathon Temple and Richard Jones) in third.

Panadol Rapid (Andrew OBrien and Alan Jackson) took out the handicap, with Gemmell Sails second, and Hey Charger (Nick Bernard and Robbie Polec) third.

Off the start four boats tangled for the lead, with Dimension Polyant (Nick Press and Brad Yabsley) and Garde alternating at the front, and Gemmell sail and LCC snapping at their heals.

Dimension rounded the top mark first, from Gemmell and Garde. With a shift in the breeze to the east, Dimension, Garde, LCC and Gemmell soon found themselves battling to sail above one of the cardinal marks of the river. Dimensions spinnaker got a little too close to the mark and became snags, broke off at the edge tape and caused them to capsize. Garde succumbed to a similar fate, managing to capsize between the mark and Dimension Polyant. LCC was next in line, but was unable to sail above the capsized Dimension, or below Garde. Picking a line between the two proved unsuccessful, clipping Garde's bow pole on the way through they soon found themselves on their side next to Dimension and became tangled.

Gemmell were able to foresee this incident and picked a higher line to avoid the carnage. With an already small lead over the rest of the pack, they continued on to sail a clean, no mistakes race. They built on their lead over the next 2 laps of the race to win by a comfortable margin.

LCC were first to pick up the pieces after the collision and chase the pack. Dimension were forced to retire with a torn spinnaker.

The battle for second place was now a close one between Foxy Lady Too (Peter Polec & Jamie McCrudden) and Andrew Short Marine (Micheal Spies and Damien Vlotman). Foxy eventually winning out after a quick dip from ASM on the second lap.

LCC and Garde preceded to make their way back through the fleet and jump up to second and third at the start of the final lap. The pair exchanged places till Garde got the jump at the mark rounding and held on to finish second.

Skiff-Ed