‘Rush’ wins first round of Sydney 38 One Design NSW titles at Joico regatta

by Rob Kothe on 3 Mar 2003 ‘Rush’ wins first round of Sydney 38 One Design NSW titles at Joico regatta

Round One of the 2003 Sydney 38 State Titles were sailed as part of the Joico Regatta, conducted by Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club over the weekend.

On Saturday Steve Robson and Cameron Miles ‘Rush’ tied with ‘Andrew Short Marine Mercury’ in a very shifty light weather day. Each boat had recorded a win and a second.

On Sunday morning, the 19 boat fleet lined up for race three in a 15 knot south easter.

‘Rush’ was out of the box fast, winning from ‘Bashful’ helmed by Hugo van Kretschmar and ‘Andrew Short Marine Mercury’.

The most remarkable effort probably came from Andrew Short’s young crew after their epic late night performance on Saturday.

In the final race in the two-day series ‘Bashful’ won from ‘Sledgehammer’ with ‘ThE Business’ third.

Sydney 38 ‘Rookie’ Ron Jones showed that that an old Sydney 40 campaigner could mix it with the kids.

Commenting last night. ‘We were thereabouts going into the last race. But in One Design, you’ve no place to hide when you make a mistake. The wind was dropping, we had a great first work and picked the shifts well ad lead early, but we did not change down to a 1 Light, when we needed too and Bashful picked us up.’

The Sydney 38 Class continues to involve Australia’s young sailors in offshore racing. Swish’s Steve Proud and Will Hutchinson, sailed with their Squadron Youth Squad which included Michael Dunstan, James Roger, Andrew Hutchinson and Ben Lamb.

These young men voted the Sydney 38 Saturday afternoon dockside party, the best part of the regatta. Certainly the buxom young ladies handing out beers were very popular. Martin ‘Tacker’ Thompson explained that it had taken three weeks of screening the 150 applicants to determine who would get the job.

Back to the racing, the top five results were


Rush Robson / Miles RPAYC 2 1 1 5 9

Andrew Short Marine Mercury Andrew Short CYCA 1 2 3 4 10

Sledgehammer Ron Jones RPAYC 3 3 6 2 14

Bashful Hugo Van Kretschmar CYCA 5 13 2 1 21

Cinquante Michael Jones RPAYC 4 6 5 8 23