Derwent Sailing Squadron Racing - Doctor Who still winning

by Peter Campbell on 14 Nov 2010 Derwent Sailing Squadron Racing - Twenty years ago this December, Hobart racing yacht Doctor Who and her owner Roger Jackman, added their names to ocean racing history when the yacht became only the second handicap winner of the Sydney Hobart Race under the then new IMS rating system.

No other Tasmanian yacht has done so well under handicap in the ocean classic since Doctor Who’s IMS division win in 1990.

Today, Doctor Who showed she is still a most competitive boat by winning Division 1 of the Derwent Sailing Squadron’s pennant race on the Derwent.

Back in 1990, Doctor Who also placed 11th overall in the IOR division, the then rating system that determined the Overall Winner of the race and winner of the Tattersalls Cup.

IOR and IMS have long since been replaced by the current IRC system, and Doctor Who win’s today was determined under the PHS handicap system, an arbitrary handicap as against a measured rating system. For DSS pennant racing, results are calculated on PHS, IRC and the more recently introduced AMS system.

Today, Doctor Who took Division 1 PHS from Jeff Cordell’s Host Plus Executive and Don Calvert’s Intrigue, which won under IRC handicaps from Dump Truck (Edward Fader) and Sally Rattle’s Archie. Under AMS handicaps, the results saw a win for Invincible (Harold Clark) from Intrigue and Dump Truck.

Division 1 boats sailed a long harbour course, while the one-design classes contested two windward/leeward courses and the cruiser/racer divisions sailed a course around river marks in a 10-15 knot east-south-easterly breeze.

There were two winners in the Farr 40s, with War Games (Wayne Banks-Smith) getting the gun in the first race by 22 seconds from Voodoo Chile (Andrew Hunn). The order changed in race two with Voodoo Chile beating War Games by 1 minute 40 seconds.

Champion helmsman Nick Rogers had two wins in the International Dragon class with Karabos IX, as did Storm Petrel (Nick Males) in the International J24 class.

In the 9m class, Footloose, skippered by Steward Geeves, won both line and handicap honours, while Innovator (Ian Smith) achieved the same result in Division 3. Division 2 saw Mem (Peter Boutchard) take line honours but relegated to second on corrected time by third to finish Wings Three (Peter Haros).