The Bellerive Yacht Club/Hobart Jaguar Land Rover Winter Series ended today in its freshest breeze of the winter, and overall pennant wins for Tas Paints, Trouble and Moonshadow.
The 15-20 knot NNW breeze, with the occasional gust to 28 knots. had the skippers' and crews’ adrenalin pumping after having experienced a light air series until now.
Half the fleet elected to stay ashore and those that raced had under reef mainsails and small jibs.
Gun boat Wild West was an early retirement just minutes after the start with minor damage, stand-in skipper Royce Salter taking a cautious approach in the absence of owners Mike and Michelle Denney overseas.
Filepro, with Tim Gadsby on the helm, led the fleet around the river course for an outright win in Division 1, while Ian Stewart steered Tas Paints into third place on corrected time to gain sufficient points to win the Winter pennant.
Tas Paints finished the Division 1 series with a score of 1-2-3-(7)-3 for a net 9 points, three points clear of Commodore Graham Mansfield’s
Black Magic on 12 points from a score of 3-3-(8)-1-5.
Filepro took third overall with 13 points from winter placings of 6-(8)-1-5-1.
“Division 2 again provided exciting, highly competitive racing with several boats swapping positions throughout the race,” BYC sailing manager Peter Watson commented.
“Any handling or tactical mistakes made by a boat saw them swiftly taken advantage of by their competitors.”
Trouble (Mark Millhouse), Saga (Chris Sheehan) and Rousabout (Derek Inglis) crossed the finish line less than two minutes apart.
Trouble also won the race by less than two minutes on corrected time from Rousabout to win the Winter Series Division 2 on a countback from Saga, with Rousabout third overall.
Trouble had a score of 3-5-1-(6)-1, Saga 2-(4)-2-3-3, both finishing with a net 10 points. Rousabout had a net 11 points from a series of 1-(7)-7-1-2.
Winning Division 2 skipper Mark Millhouse summed up the BYC Winter Series on facebook: “Gret breeze indeed! Thanks for the pics Peter Watson, and thanks to all organisers and volunteers for the BYC Winter Series. Winter sailing is great on the Derwent.”
Division 3 also experienced competitive racing at the front of the fleet, joined in today’s windy race by the plucky little J24, Zest. “Matt Westland and his crew pushed Zest to the limit in the fresh breeze,” said Peter Watson, who again shot some graphic photos of the racing.
Consistency proved the Winter pennant-winning formula for Moonshadow (Anthony Ellis) in Division 3, today scoring an outright win to finish the series with 7 points from a scorecard of (7)-1-3-2-1.
Jim Thorpe’s Hydrotherapy finished second today, placings of 3-(4)-1-3-2 for a net 9 points for second overall while third overall went to Southern Cross (Wayne Pitt) on 13 points whose scorecard read (6)-3-5-1-4.
– Peter Campbell
