From cat to mono

Tornado sailor Leigh McMillan wins the Vectrix SB3 Aussie championship

British Olympic Tornado sailor Leigh McMillan and his UK bowman Chris Kerrison have upset Geelong locals, Brendan Garner’s Home Team, by taking the Vectrix SB3 Class Australian Championship by just 1.5 points.

“Despite the excellent hospitality, we didn’t want to leave the silverware in its home town,” admitted Kerrison this afternoon.

With two new female crewmembers who were picked up amidst the post-race festivities at Royal Geelong Yacht Club (RGYC) last night and who were “excellent at applying sun cream”, McMillan and Kerrison enjoyed toying with the local favourites in today’s final races.

“We had calculated that as long as Home Team finished below fourth place, we’d win the series so on the final upwind leg we took them right out wide. The two of us rounded the final top mark around three minutes behind the lead boats,” Kerrison said this afternoon.

As well as high profile McMillan, other sailors featuring in the top placings included Britain's Andy Hazell and two-time Hong Kong Yachtsman of the Year, Mark Dagge

This new (to Australia) one design class has rejuvenated Kerrison’s passion for yacht racing while Kai Timm from Oceanburo, the Australia-wide importer of the class, heralded the inaugural Australian regatta a major success.

Built in Germany and the fastest growing one design class in the world according to Timm, the SB3s are well established in Europe and so far a fleet of 24 has been imported into Australia with six sold and the majority of the remaining SB3s chartered out for this regatta.

A well known Queensland Sunshine Coast company, Tasqua, bought one and loaned it to an up-and-coming youth crew, skippered by Sean O’Rourke, and Kimm lent an SB3 to some crew from his local yacht club, narrowly beating them by just one place.

The British team walk away with a brand new Vectrix maxi-scooter, which is valued at Aus$17,500. The Vectrix scooter is an all electric, high performance scooter, with zero emissions.