Sailors sharpen up for worlds
WITH less than three months to the SB20 sports boat world championships in Hobart, competition is hotting up within the local River Derwent fleet.
So far there have two twilight Pennant races on a Thursday evening with up to 18 starters and yesterday 14 boats contested two races on day one of the SB20 Sprint Series.
The four races have produced three different winners, Rob Gough (Difficult Woman) and Elliott Noye (Porco Rosso) in the Pennant races and Scott Brain (Brainwave) in yesterday’s Sprint Series.
In the four races sailed so far this summer, there have been eight different placegetters, with seconds separating the top boats.
Brain, a former state champion, steered Brainwave to consecutive wins yesterday after Derwent Sailing Squadron race officer Ian Ross was forced to abandon race one when the breeze flicked from north to south midway through the race.
The next two races were sailed in a steady 12-15 knot south-easterly sea breeze with just seconds separating the leading boats across the finish line.
In the first race, Brainwave had a comfortable 48-second win from Honey Badger (Paul Burnell) and Difficult Woman, who crossed the line two seconds apart.
In the second race, Brainwave’s winning margin was just 10 seconds from Pinch (Frazer Read) with another 10 seconds to Hypertronics (Stephen Catchpool).
Four women skippers sailed in yesterday’s 14-boat fleet with teenager Issi Declerk steering Power of Athena into seventh in fleet and first on PHS handicaps in race one. In race two, she placed fourth on handicap to head the overall PHS pointscore.