Tasmania’s champion sailors in the one-design SB20 and International Dragon classes were decided on the River Derwent as part of the weekend’s Crown Series Bellerive Regatta.
Tasmania’s largest regatta saw close to 150 boats, involving more than 600 sailors, young and old, contesting three days of close racing to decide to top boats in nine keelboat divisions and ten skiff and dinghy classes.
Tasmanian champion in the high performance SB20 sports boat class is Frazer Read, sailing Pinch, while the perennial Dragons, once an Olympic class, went to Wicked, skippered by Andrew Blackney.
Read is a former ‘gun’ sailor in the iconic Sharpie class while Blakney is also a regular SB20 helmsman.
Pinch had two wins and a fourth today to overtake Saturday’s leader Porco Rosso (Elliott Noye), finishing with a net 11 points to Porco Rosso’s 14 points.
Third overall, on 17 points was Team Musto (George Peacock) while first place under PHS scoring went to Power of Athena (Anna Reid)
Wicked was unbeaten in the small fleet of Dragons, finishing with seven points. Second overall was Thorvalda (Stephen Henley) on 13 points, third Leander (Darryl Ridgeway) on 20 points
Racing on most courses was delayed for an hour this morning, but a south-easterly breeze filled in to 18 knots by midday before fading away mid-afternoon.
The entire fleet in Division 2, Sailing with Spinnakers, failed to finish their last race while the last for the SB20s was abandoned.
Regatta manager, Vice Commodore Ian Stewart was delighted with this year’s event, with double the number of boats in the Racing Division and an increase in off-the-beach entries, especially in Sabres, Sabots and 29ers.
“Competing in the big Racing Division, especially at the rounding marks, was amazing,” added Stewart who steered his own boat, the Mumm 36 TasPaints.
Wayne Banks-Smith, one of Hobart’s best-known yacht owners, steered this Farr 40 War Games to line honours in all seven races for the Racing Division, winning the PHS and IRC handicap categories on corrected time.
In PHS, War Games’ winning margin was just .5 points from Prion (John Dryden) which excelled on day three, scoring two wins and a seventh place. Cromarty Magellan (Richard Grant) was another point back.
In the IRC category War Games won five of the seven races on corrected time with Whistler second and B&G Advantage third.
The AMS category went to Whistler (David Aplin) with Jeff Cordell’s B&G Advantage second and War Games third.
Former Sydney Hobart winner and Australian Admiral’s Cup team yacht, Ultimate Challenge, now owned by Peter Jenkins, won Division 1 (Cruising with Spinnakers) winning three of the five races on corrected time.
Zephyr (Ian Johnston) placed second overall, The Protagonist (Colin Denny) third.
With Division 2 (Cruising with Spinnakers) reduced to four races, first place went to Footloose (Stewart Geeves) on a countback from Young One (Nathan Mills and John Nibbs). Mishief (Kif Weber) placed third.
In Cruising with Spinnakers Division 3 all five races were completed, with Craig Escott steering Commbank to victory from Pinta (Dan Ford) and Alley Oop (Alan Nelson).
Cruising (Non Spinnaker) saw a comfortable overall win for Richard Ware’s Temeraire IV with a consistent scorecard of 2-2-1-6-2. Breakaway (Victoria Logan), which won the first two races, finished second overall, third place going to Elsewhere (Scott Lovell)
A small fleet of boats from Port Dalrymple Yacht Club at Beauty Point travelled down the Midland Highway to contest the Trailable Yachts division, with Andrew Jones’s Shrinkedge going home with the trophy after placings of 1-2-1-3.
– Peter Campbell
