Hobart’s booming fleet of SB20 one-design sports boats will be strongly represented by nine crews at the Australian championship on Port Phillip, starting on Wednesday, 2 March.
Heading the contingent of Tasmanian boats to shipped across Bass Strait early this week is 2016 SB20 Tasmanian champion Ronald Young Builders, skippered by Scott Brain, a wellknown member of the Derwent Sailing Squadron.
The championship series, with a record fleet of 23 boats, was conducted as part of the recent Banjo’s Shoreline Crown Series Bellerive Regatta, with Brain helming Ronald Young Builders consistently well over the eight races.
The championship went down the final two races with Brain finishing with a fourth and a second to end with a net 21 points, which included two wins.
Second and third places overall were fought out by two Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania members, Nick Rogers’ Karabos and Michael Cooper’s Export Roo.
In the final race Karabos put a close cover on Export Roo and they both ended up mid-fleet, Karabos 12th and Export Roo 14th. In both cases, these became their discard races with Karabos finished second overall on 24 points, Export Roo third on 30 points.
Indicative of the close competition was the fact that five different boats were championship race winners. Ten different boats finished in a place over the eight races.
“Fantastic racing…make a slight tactical or sail handling error and they swooped on you,” commented Nick Rogers, with Karabos one of five boats to win a championship race. The others were Ronald Young Builders (2), Difficult Woman (Rob Gough), 2Unlimited (2) and Balios (Matthew Pilkington).
The youngest skipper in the fleet, teenager Sam King and his crew of fellow Laser sailors from the RYCT Off the Beach division, finished 12th overall, Sam’s placings including a third and a fifth on day two, spoilt by a black flag disqualification in race seven.
“He sailed extremely well in his first regatta in the SB20 class…certainly a helmsman to watch in the future,” commented Nick Rogers.
Joining Scott Brain and his DSS crew of Ronald Young Builders in next week’s Australian championship at Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron will be Karabos (Nick Rogers, RYCT), Export Roo (Michael Cooper, RYCT), Sudden Impulse (Richard Fader, RYCT), Hypertronics (Stephen Catchpool, DSS), Mind Games (Phil Reid, RYCT), Balios (Michael Pilkington, RYCT). Fruit Machine (Andrew Smith) and Nautilus Marine Insurance (Hughie Lewis, BYC).
Peter Campbell
29 February 2016
