Victory for the old fellas

John Winning (Snr) takes final race of the 18ft skiffs' NSW Championship

Yandoo’s John 'Woody' Winning, Andrew Hay and Dave Gibson may be the veteran team in the fleet, but they showed their younger opponents that they are far from easy beats when they won the fifth and last race of the NSW Championship on Sydney Harbour today.

The win put Yandoo into overall second place in the championship behind the winning Gotta Love It 7 team of Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and Scott Babbage. Gotta Love It 7 had the championship won prior to today’s race when they recorded four consecutive wins in the previous four races.

Rookie skipper Jack Macartney and his Rag & Famish Hotel crew Tom Clout and Drewe Waller, are continuing to improve with every race and today finished a great second 1m7s behind Yandoo. The placing moved them into fourth place overall behind Gotta Love It 7, Yandoo and Thurlow Fisher Lawyers (Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas).

The final pointscores are: Gotta Love It 7 (4 points), Yandoo (12, on count back), Thurlow Fisher Lawyers (12), Rag & Famish Hotel (14), Red Claw (Matt Searle, Archie Massey, Mike McKenzie – 16) and Smeg (Nick Press, Dan Phillips, Dave Ewings – 25).

Today’s race was sailed in a light east wind and for most of the course it looked as though Gotta Love It 7 would go through with five wins. After leading the race from the start, the 7 crew led at every mark for the first two laps of the course.

On the final windward leg, Yandoo and Rag & Famish Hotel both sailed higher than 7 and it wasn’t surprising when Yandoo grabbed a 15s lead over Rag & Famish Hotel at the Rose Bay mark.

The experienced crew on Yandoo weren’t about to relinquish their lead and crossed the finish line under spinnaker with a 1m7s margin over Rag & Famish Hotel.

In the very testing conditions, many of the newer crews began to show better form. Marcus Ashley-Jones was sixth in Asko Appliances, while Australian Match racing champion Evan Walker brought Sharks home seventh.

The latest new skiff to hit the water was Smeg and quickly showed that this team will also be well on the pace in the upcoming Australian Championship in the new year.

Full results here