Early lead for Young

First heat sailed in the 18ft skiffs' Ssangyong JJ Giltinan International Championship in Sydney

Anthony Young's Computer Associates outgunned a hot 18ft Skiff fleet to take out Heat 2 of the Ssangyong JJ Giltinan International Championship on Sydney Harbour today.

Another rainy and overcast day greeted the 18 foot skiffs this morning, the wind eventually settled to a 7-15 knot south easterly which meant a shifty and tactically day for all.

The start got underway on time, the guys who got bad starts went right ended up looking good like Asko and Rag and Famish, while others were forced left which didn’t look so good. RMW got a good start but ended up doing a 360 penalty turn and were 16th at the first windward mark.

The long downwind saw the fleet sorted themselves out with RMW moving from 16th to 7th place with obvious quick downwind speed but the real race of the day was between 1st and 2nd place between Computer Associates and Hugh Stodart's Asko Appliances who staged a two boat war from the start. The former team only gained the upper hand over the concluding stages. At the finish Computer Associates took honours by 1min 10secs from Asko Appliances with John Harris' Rag & Famish Hotel a further 54secs back in third place.

The tricky course saw the first and second place boats pull out some distance where the next group of Rag and Famish, RMW, Yandoo, Omega Smeg and Howie Hamlin had a great tussle to decide the top ten places.

It was a great return to form for the team of the Computer Associates team of Anthony Young, Matt Pearce and Phil Harmer, who have been consistent but unable to reproduce the form which saw them strong contenders throughout last year's Giltinan.

RMW recovered to third place midway through the course but lacked their usual boatspeed and struggled over the final legs costing them two extra placings to finish sixth.

The breeze wind and heavy harbour traffic tested the world's best crews to their limits but it was a great performance from both the CA and Asko crews who both gave faultless displays.

Heat 1, which had to be abandoned for the day on Saturday, will now be sailed tomorrow (Monday, 21 February) at 3.00pm.

Results:

Pos	Boat	Elapsed Time	Pnts
1	Computer Associates	01:20:58	1
2	Asko Appliances	01:22:08	2
3	Rag & Famish Hotel	01:23:02	3
4	Ssangyong Yandoo		4
5	Omega Smeg		5
6	RMW Marine		6
7	Team Pegasus		7
8	Maytag		8
9	Fisher & Paykel		9
10	Churchill's Sports Bar		10
11	Casio Seapathfinder		11
12	Panasonic		12
13	Club Marine		13
14	SX Projects		14
15	Belle Property		15
16	GP Covers		16
17	CT Sail Battens		17
18	Team Morrison		18
19	CST Composites		19
20	Avaya		20
21	Barron & Smithers-Henri Lloyd		21
22	AAPT		22
23	Fat Face Clothing		23
24	Rosemount		24
25	Team Mc Lean		25
26	Pegasus Racing		26
27	CST Switzerland		27
28	Adtec Communications	Non-finisher	29

More pics on page 2...