Our boys matching it with the pros

HOBART amateur sailors Elliott Noye, Paul McCartney and Edward Snowball have finished second overall and were winners of the Corinthian Trophy at the SB20 sportsboat European championship which finished in Ireland yesterday.

Sailing Porco Rosso, Noye (a builder), McCartney, (an eye surgeon) and Snowball (an engineer) lost the championship to a professional sailing team from Russia after heading the leaderboard going into the 10th and final race.

Discard races decided the championship, with the second drop coming into effect after the 10th race.

This allowed the Russian boat, Vis Sailing Team, skippered by Artem Basalkin, to discard a 48th (disqualification) and a 33rd for a net score of 27 points.

The Russians had been fourth overall going into the last day of racing, with only one of three scheduled races sailed.

Porco Rosso and the Irish yacht Sin Bin (Michael O’Connor) had been first and second, with just one point between them, and they sailed tactically to cover each other in race 10, both finishing mid- fleet. Porco Rosso finished 30th, Sin Bin 39th and after both used this race as their second discard, they again finished one point apart, with the Tasmanians on 46 points and the Irish crew on 47 points.

The Russians came in fourth with a net score of 27 points.

In the past two months, the Tasmanian crew have contested three SB20 sportsboat regattas in Europe this summer.

They were twice runner-up in Portugal and now in Ireland, where the European championship has been held at the Royal Irish Yacht Club at Dun Laoghaire, Dublin.