Sailing South wrap

Peter Campbell reports on IRC and Farr 40 racing in Hobart

IRC

Sydney yacht Patrice Six, skippered by Tony Kirby, today clinched victory in the IRC division of the Huon Aquaculture Sailing South Regatta with a last race win – with the aid of a crew of mostly Tasmanians.

Kirby, a prominent international ocean racing sailor from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, brought Patrice Six, a Danish designed and built X-41 one design, to Hobart in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

He also entered Sailing South for the first time, but sought local knowledge of the Derwent River and southern waters by recruiting Steven Shields as tactician, along with other Tasmanians Claire Cunningham, Ben Morgan, Nick Jones, John Taton, Mark Dawson and John Lawrie.

Also in the crew were Michael Smith and Peter Hildyard from Queensland and Rowan (Disco) from Victoria.

“The crew played a great part in our victory, and it was great to be able to have aboard my good friends John Lawrie and David Cawthorn, who is confined to a wheelchair but sailed several races with us,” Kirby said.

”I inherited the sail number 360 and the name ‘Patrice’ from my father Ray, who campaigned Patrice II with that sail number back in the 1970s.”

Patrice Six went into today’s final two windward/leeward races equal on 4 points with Limit, Alan Brierty’s Corby 49, skippered by Roger Hickman, after discarding their worst race.

In race four, the morning race for IRC division, Roger Hickman powered Limit away to a fast start from the line, set by PRO ‘Biddy’ Badenach to the south-east of the John Garrow light.

Hickman quickly tacking away to the eastern shore and picked up several favourable windshifts to finish 3 minutes 22 seconds ahead of David Kellett’s Endorfin with another 2 minutes 18 seconds to Tony Kirby’s Patrice Six.

On corrected time, Limit won from Patrice Six with Endorfin (David Kellett) in third place.

After a delay of one and a half hours, the fifth and final race was started in a 6 knot easterly breeze, but halfway down the second leg, the wind became extremely patchy with Limit, well in the lead, sailing into a ‘hole’ and being overtaken by Endorfin.

Skipper Roger Hickman recovered the lead on the second windward leg, but it was the Corby 49 did not hold a time advantage. This was compounded on the final leg to the finish of the shortened course, but Limit being brought to halt as the wind suddenly back to the west and freshened to 20 knots.

As Hickman and his crew struggled to get the spinnaker down and the headsail hoisted, the yachts astern again closed the gap. Limit got the gun but could not beat Patrice Six, or any of the four starters in the IRC division, on corrected time.

Patrice Six won the final race from the Tasmanian yacht Silver Mist (Andrew Sutherland) and Endorfin.

The end result was that Patrice Six won the IRC division and the Charles E Davies Memorial Trophy with a final 5 points from placings of 1-1-2-2-1, from Limit on 9 points (5-2-1-1-5), third going to Endorfin on 12 points (4-3-3-3-3).

Silver Mist won the PHS Division series, sailed in conjunction, from another Tasmanian boat Pisces (David Taylor).

Farr 40s

The final race was started after a delay of an hour and a half because of lack of wind and when it did get underway the breeze swung from an 6 knot easterly to a westerly, freshening sharply to 20 knots.

Wired was caught in between wind changes, as were a number of boats, whereas the leading F40s managed to carry shy kites on the final leg of the shortened course, before reaching into the finish as the breeze backed from east to north and finally to a hot and gusty westerly.

However, Wired had notched up its third win in the morning’s race and, after discarding today’s 5th, it was sufficient to give Boyes and his crew a comfortable winning points margin from placings of 1-2-1-1-5 for a total of 5 points.

Second place overall went to the luckless Voodoo Chile, skippered by Andrew Hunn, which scored an impressive last race win following a second in race four the morning.

The second place was an excellent recovery after taking a 720 degrees penalty turn because of a port-and-starboard incident with Euro Central at the start. Voodoo Chile finished on 8 points from placings of 2-dsq-4-2-1.

Third overall went to the consistent War Games, steered by Wayne Banks-Smith, on 9.5 points from placings of 3-2-2-4-3, just edging out Euro Central (Hughie Lewis) which placed 4-3-3-5-2 for 12.5 points.

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