Back to back wins in 2019 SSANZ Two Handed Round New Zealand Race
by Deb Williams 19 Mar 2019 22:09 PDT
Titanium starting Leg 4 in Napier - 2019 SSANZ Two Handed Round New Zealand Race © Deb Williams
Line honours winner Titanium (Thompson 38) crossed the finish line 25 days after starting the SSANZ Two Handed Round New Zealand race. An overall elapsed time for the four legs of 13 days, 22 hours was enough for Titanium to also win overall handicap honours.
Co-skippers Shane Bellingham and Chris Skinner won the double for legs two and four, fighting off Damon Joliffe and Josh Tucker in Motorboat II (Elliott 10.5) who won both line and handicap in legs one and three.
Finishing the longest leg from Mangonui to Stewart Island with a comfortable 22 hour lead on handicap won the race for Titanium, making Chris Skinner the first to win back to back handicap honours in this challenging two handed race. Skinner competed in the 2012 edition of the Round New Zealand race on Truxton (Tiller 10.5) winning legs two and four.
Also completing the race for the second time was Rob Croft and Sally Garrett on the Farr 38 Coppelia - the first crew and boat combination to do so in this race which has only been run three times. Coppelia won the final leg Napier to Auckland on handicap and finished 3rd overall on handicap behind Motorboat II.
All seven boats that started on February 16 crossed the finish line in Auckland after sailing over 2000nm, which was the first time that every boat completed the race bringing the total number of boats to do so to 19 and 37 sailors.
Find full results here