2018 SB20 Australian Championship at Derwent Sailing Squadron - Day 2
by Jane Austin 2 Dec 2018 01:35 PST
30 November - 2 December 2018
2018 SB20 Australian Championship - Day 2 © Jane Austin
Day two of the 2018 SB20 Australian Championship showed what one design sailing is all about, with slick crew work and clever tactics the order of the day.
Race Officer Ian Ross had an interesting start to the day, with the course originally lining up on Battery Point but finishing up almost 180 degrees round to the east.
Ross was able to get three races completed and tried for a fourth late in the day after the breeze had built to a consistent 17 knots, but it was abandoned after a 60-degree shift to the left put all the boats on the left of the race course pointing straight at the mark, which the Race Committee agreed wasn't a fair and reasonable contest.
At the end of Day two of sailing, Michael Cooper (Export Roo) has held on to first place and sits on 9 points with six races now sailed in the series (which includes one drop). Cooper is sailing with highly regarded sailor David Chapman and local Sam Tiedemann. Chapman provided some useful advice for sailing SB20s in Hobart.
"The big thing in Hobart is that it's so shifty; you have to have options off the start line, so you might get a good start, but you always need to have the ability to do what you want to do, tactically," said Chapman.
But the second day of racing belonged to world champion sailor Nick Rogers (Karabos) and his crew of Simon Burrows and Cole Dabner, with two wins and a third place. Rogers paid credit to his crew and their tactics on the race course.
"The boys are fantastic, it's really beautiful to sail with guys that can work out the course and work together as a team.
"Today, we didn't get too greedy. We kept the boat moving as fast as we possibly could until we felt that we could cross the pack of boats, and that worked really well for us. There were a lot of boats going out hard to the left and hard to the right, but we just worked the middle and tried to stay in between the two," said Rogers.
Rogers is on 15 points while Brett Cooper (Aelous), who recovered well after a shock disqualification from the first race of the series, is in third place on 20 points. [Brett] Cooper is seven points clear of the leading youth team, Will Sargent's (Taz Racing Team) on 27 points, with a further four points to Scott Brain (Brainwave) on 31 points. The leading women's team is Felicity Allison (Cook Your Own Dinner) on 79 points which is 13 points clear of Colleen Darcey (Pride of Athena).
The final day of racing gets under way at 1pm tomorrow.
Find complete results here