Season to open in fine style
ONE of Tasmania’s most famous racing yachts, the 21-foot Restricted Class boat Tassie Too, will join Derwent Sailing g Squadron boat Young Lion in n leading the fleet on the Opening Day of the Yachting ng Season on Hobart’s River Derwent.
Opening Day, a grand tradition on the Derwent, will be held next Saturday (October 6), with the Governor of Tasmania, Kate Warner, taking the salute from aboard the MV V Egeria, anchored in Sullivans Cove.
At the helm of the restored Tassie Too will be well-known meteorologist st Kenn Batt, a descendant of its famous designer and helmsman W.P. “Skipper’’ Batt.
Steering Young Lion, , and first to salute the Governor, will be Derwent Sailing Squadron Commodore Steve Chau, his club chairing the Combined Clubs Series working committee for the 2018-19 yachting season.
Young Lion, a Division 2 pennant-winning Young 88, has been given the honour of leading the colourful sail-past of more than 200 craft that will start off the Regatta Grounds at 2pm and sail/ motor into Sullivans Cove, leaving Egeria to port.
Tassie Too (affectionately known as “TT’’), the 90-year-old record-breaking winner of the coveted Forster Cup interstate sailing challenge (10 times between 1928 and 1952), will follow close astern, with Kenn Batt saluting on behalf of the volunteers who have lovingly restored the old wooden yacht.
Astern will come more than 200 ocean- and harbourracing yachts, motor cruisers, sports boats and off-the-beach dinghies, one or two “gentleman’s steam launches’’, a couple of high-flying foiler Moths, and even the odd “tinnie’’.
Tassie Too was designed and skippered by W. P. “Skipper’’ Batt along with Alfred Blore and John Tarleton, and built of Huon and King Billy pine by Charlie Lucas and “Chips’’ Gronfers.
Descendants of the designer, builders, early skippers and crew members formed the Friends of Tassie Too organisation to return the famous 21-footer to Tasmania and undertake a major and ongoing refurbishment.
The FOTT is about to launch a further fundraiser to continue the maintenance of this remarkably innovative and historic boat that in its winning days captured a huge following in Tasmania.
While the Opening Day of the Yachting Season is a day of celebration afloat for racing yacht owners and their crews, it will be straight into racing mode the next day (October 7), as many compete in the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s Channel Race.
The long day race has for many decades been the first race of the summer for the RYCT, starting off Castray Esplanade and taking the fleet down the Derwent to finish off Bligh Point in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
The first Combined Clubs Series race will be the following Saturday (October 13). THE fascination of maritime archaeology will be the subject of a school holiday program run by the Tasmanian Maritime Museum. TEAMS of talented teenagers from two Hobart schools, The Friends’ School and Fahan, are in New Zealand preparing for the Australia versus New Zealand 2018 Interdominion Schools Team Sailing Championship.
After training this weekend they will compete in four days of intense team racing, sailing two-crew 420 dinghies, against New Zealand’s leading school sailing teams at Sandpit Yacht Club, Algies Bay, north of Auckland, starting on Monday.
The Friends’ School finished second in the open division of the Australian schools team racing championship in July. Fahan won the female division.
The Friends’ team contesting the open division in New Zealand comprises Daniel Maree, Ethan Galbraith, Isabella Declerck, WiIliam Sargent, Finn Buchanan, Brendan Crisp and Hugo Hamilton.
Sailing for Fahan in the all-girls team are Meg Goodfellow, Anabelle Zeeman, Chloe Abel, Abbey Calvert, Laura Cooper, Amy Potter and Emily Nicholson.
Friends’ will be joined by teams from Westminster College in Adelaide and Brighton Grammar, while Fahan and Sydney’s Ascham School will contest the all-girls division.
The sessions, for children aged from six to 13, will be of added interest because the dates coincide with the museum’s staging of a travelling exhibition from the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney called Submerged — Stories of Australian Shipwrecks.
The holiday program will cover the discovery of shipwrecks and the recovery and identification of objects from the sea bed, as well as other activities.
The cost of $5 per family will include entry to the museum for the day.
The holiday program will be held on Monday and Thursday, then on October 8 and October 11, with sessions running from 10am-noon.
For bookings and more information, phone 6234 1427. THE Port of Hobart will feature next week in the regular series of talks presented by the Maritime Museum of Tasmania.
The talk on Tuesday will be presented by MMT vicepresident, photographer and author Rex Cox, who has had a lifelong interest in the port, its history and working life.
The presentation will be richly illustrated with photographs spanning the past and present-day life of the Sullivans Cove area.
The talk will be in the Royal Society Room at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Davey St entrance) from noon-1pm on Tuesday. THE 2019 edition of the United Kingdom’s famous Fastnet Race will start on August 3, two weeks earlier than the original date.
Unusually, the race will now run the week before Cowes Week, the dates of which remain unchanged, starting on August 10.
The break with tradition has been for a number of reasons, including weather concerns over late August for the big fleet.
Bringing the race, which dates back to 1925, forward will also give more time for yachts that also want to return from Plymouth to the Isle of Wight to compete at Cowes Week.