Betsey Island Race - Good sailing days for the Bugg family of Hobart

by Peter Campbell on 18 Dec 2010 On Friday Matthew Bugg, who was left a paraplegic in a skiing incident but has returned to competitive international sailing, finished third overall and first paraplegic sailor in the 2.4 metre class at the ISAF World Sailing Cup Sail Melbourne regatta.

Today, his father Ron steered his 30-footer Buggbear to a Division 2 win in the DSS’ Betsey Island Race, taking line and handicap honours.

Ron has been the driving force and mentor in his son’s return to sailing following the skiing accident in Switzerland, and also sails a 2.4m boat in training with Matthew.

In addition, Ron has a heavy involvement in sailing administration at Vice Commodore of the DSS and Race Director of the expanding Sargisons and Natuzzi Launceston to Hobart Yacht Race which starts from Beauty Point on 27 December.

In today’s race, Buggbear won the start with a fast spinnaker hoist and maintained that lead throughout the race, with Division 2 and Division 3 boats sailing around Little Betsey Island and the bigger Division 1 boats completing the full 35 nautical mile course around Betsey Island.

On corrected time, Buggbear won by 16 minutes from Molly Coddle (Andrew Mollison) with third place going to The Saint (John Lewis).

It was a slow race, with the fleet starting in a light northerly breeze that gave the yachts a spinnaker run down the Derwent for several miles, before being replaced by a light seabreeze.

Unfortunately for those yachts that chose the eastern shore, the southerly died away leaving many becalmed off White Rock. In contrast, yachts that sailed down the western shore past Taroona held on to a light breeze before tacking over to the Iron Pot and out into Storm Bay.

The breeze stayed under 10 knots throughout the day, but the southerly did give most boats a spinnaker run back up the River Derwent to the finish. Nevertheless, it took Stephen Boyes’ Farr 40 Wired 5 hours and 38 minutes to sail the 35 nautical mile course while most of the fleet took over seven hours, leading to 10 of the 25 starters to retire.

Wired made the most of sailing down the eastern shore to take the line/handicap double in Division 1. Wired won line honours from Mark Ballard’s 42 South and Ian Stewart’s Taspaints and on handicap won from TasPaints by 10 minutes, with 42 South placing third.

In Division 3, Take Five (Ian Gannon) won from Grizzly Adams (Joel Bultman) by seven minutes on corrected time, with third place going to Ingenue (Nigel Johnston).