Wild Joe comes out on top

Despite boom vang breakage in final race of Hog's Breath Race Week series

Popular young Sydney skipper Steven David was forced to face some anxious moments on a wind swept Pioneer Bay today when Wild Joe terminated her boom vang and was forced to retire from the final race in the Hog’s Breath Race Week series.

Fortunately the failure of the important sail control fitting had little bearing on the overall championship result with Steven David and his Wild Joe crew discarding the fail to finish points as their worst performance for skipper Steven David to win his second Boss Hog Boat of the series trophy in the past three years.

Their consistent results in the previous seven races allowed the highly talented Wild Joe crew to win the IRC class championship by a narrow 1 point margin after the Dick Cawse skippered Vanguard won a thrilling nip-n-tuck match race over Stephen Ainsworth’s Loki.

Both crews were evenly matched until the wind built to a testing 23 knots allowing Vanguard which seemed much stiffer on the tough slog against the building breeze to edge clear.

The Vanguard crew while applying a safe tactical upwind cover on Loki still managed to build on their lead to eventually claim a deserved line and corrected time win with an impressive 3 minute 57 second margin at the finish of yet another grueling fresh wind race

Final championship results:
1. Wild Joe (S David, NSW) 4-1-4-1-2-10-1-dnf 23pts
2. Loki (S Ainsworth, NSW) 1-23-3-2-5-9-2-2 24pts
3. Vanguard (D Cawse, NSW) 2-2-18-3-9-8-3-1 28pts