A corrected time win by just 23 seconds in Saturday’s final race of the Combined Club’s Group 1 Harbour Series on Hobart’s River Derwent gave Jeff Cordell’s Mumm 36 Host Plus Executive an overall PHS category season victory by 1.5 points from Stephen Boyes’ Farr 40 Wired.
The Bellerive Yacht Club member completed a winning pennant double with a more comfortable overall IRC victory from Don Calvert’s Castro 40 Intrigue, missing out on a rare triple victory by four points in placing second under AMS to fellow BYC member Harold Clark’s Farr 1104 Invincible. It was a deserved win for Cordell who puts much of his time voluntarily back into the sport as Yachting Tasmania’s offshore and measurement co-ordinator.
The Group 1 PHS outcome was just one of remarkably close finishes that decided the Harbour Series pennant winners for the Combined Club summer season of 2014-2915 on the River Derwent.
In near perfect sailing conditions, Bellerive Yacht Club conducted two windward/leeward races for Groups 1 and 2 and a race around the harbour for Groups 4 and 6. The breeze was a steady 10-15 knot southerly, although lighter down river.
In Group 1, Wired made a late bid for an overall win in the PHS category by winning the opening race of the day, race 13 of the Harbour Series, to level with Host Plus Executive on the overall pointscore. Mem, the series leader going into the final day, dropped to third overall, with just one point between the three leading boats.
Host Plus won the final race on corrected time from Gary Cripps’ Ciao Baby II from Wayne Banks-Smith’s Farr 40 War Games to clinch the overall PHS pennant by 1.5 points from Wired which slipped to equal sixth on corrected time. Ciao Baby II’s last race second place gave the Sydney 38 third place overall.
Host Plus had a more comfortable overall win in Group 1 IRC, finishing the series with an equal first and a win to take the pennant by 10 points from Don Calvert’s Castro 40 Intrigue. The two dead-heated for first in race 13, the first of the day. War Games finished third overall, half a point behind Intrigue.
Harold Clark’s Farr 1104 Invincible proved herself again virtually invincible under her AMS rating, yesterday notching up her seventh win of the season in race 13 to win the AMS category of Group 1, four points clear of Host Plus Executive, third place overall going to Ian Stewart’s Mumm 36 TasPaints.
Just two points separated first and second placegetters overall in Group 2, with the Derwent Sail Squadron vice commodore Steve Chau and Scott Brain’s Young 88, Young Lion, taking the series from Grahame Inglis’ Rousabout, third overall going to Dave Willans’ Trouble, just two points further back.
Rousabout won both races on the final day but a third and a second by Young Lion kept her at the top of the leaderboard.
Two points separated the three podium finishers in Group 4, which on Saturday enjoyed a race around harbour marks. Charles Peacock’s Serica won the final race but finished fourth overall.
A last race third enabled Kevin Jacobson’s Eliza to win the series by 1.5 points from Pirate’s Pride (Peter Masterton) which finished half a point head of Chicas (John Lewis) which had headed the leaderboard going into yesterday’s final race. Chicas ended up with her worst result of the season, a sixth on corrected time.
A last race win enabled Peter Bosworth’s Astrolabe to finish with a four points winning margin in Group 6, second place going to Frank Chatterton’s Kamehameha. Third overall was Nigel Johnson’s Ingenue.
– Peter Campbell
