18ft Skiff Queen of the Harbour
by Frank Quealey 2 Feb 2025 01:23 PST
2 February 2025
A 10-12 knot North-East breeze, perfect sailing conditions for 18ft skiff racing, provided a brilliant experience for each of the female crew members entered in the annual Queen of the Harbour, which was conducted by the Australian 18 Footers League on Sydney Harbour today.
After a close race for most of the course, the Finport Finance team took line honours from Smeg by 1m22s but after handicaps were brought into play, Casey Sexty, on Smeg, became the Queen of the Harbour for 2025.
Runner-up was Belle Parker on the 18 Footers Bar and Restaurant, with Adele Phillips in third place on Burrawang-Young Henrys. For Adele, it was also an outstanding performance as she skippered the boat while her father Daniel Phillips was a member of the crew.
Racing on the day was conducted over twox2-lap windward-return courses and was close with several positional changes throughout the fleet in the fluctuating breeze as wind shifts were created across the course.
In the Queen of the Harbour race, Finport Finance (Keagan York, Shaun Connor and Phil Marshall, together with Abby Punnet) had a tight duel with the recently-crowned Australian champion Rag & Famish Hotel (Harry Price, Max Paul, Finn Rodowicz and Ellie Malouf) before going on to defeat Smeg (Nathan McNamara, Jed Cruikshank, Jack Taylor and Casey Sexty).
The Rag finished in third place, 10s behind Smeg, followed by Balmain (Henry Larkings), Burrawang-Young Henrys (Adele Phillips), Vaikobi (Kirk Mitchell), Yandoo Tom Needham), The Kitchen Maker (Lachlan Steel), Team Vic (Scott Cunningham) and 18 Footers Bar and Restaurant (Luca Gambacorti).
Rag & Famish Hotel and Finport Finance raced over the first lap of the course with just a few boatlengths between them, but over the final windward leg, The Rag allowed Finport Finance to go to the east and paid a heavy penalty when Finport picked up the easterly shift and led by 50s at the weather mark.
Balmain, Burrawang-Young Henrys and Vaikobi were also prominent during the race as weas Sixt (Jacob Marks) but the latter was recorded OCS.
The breeze lightened and went more to the East for the latter, 90 years trophy, race and there were more directional shifts for the fleet to handle.
The Yandoo team of Tom Needham, Fang Warren and Pete Nicholson staged a great comeback to grab a 23s victory from Finport Finance after having to recover from a fifth placing at the first weather mark.
Yandoo crossed the finish line ahead of Finport Finance with Rag & Famish Hotel a further 1m16s back in third place.
Lazarus Capital Partners (Tom Cunich) was another great performer when the team came back from just inside the top ten placings early in the race to finish in fourth place, ahead of Balmain, Smeg, Vaikobi, Burrawang-Young Henrys (Dan Phillips), Sixt and The Kitchen Maker.
Rag & Famish Hotel held the early lead once again but lost out on the first spinnaker run to the Balmain team which were very impressive downwind to the mark off Clark Island. Unfortunately, Balmain and The Rag missed the easterly shift and were relegated back into fifth and third places respectively.
There will be no 18 footer racing next Sunday as SailGP will be using the harbour.