Two Tasmanian sailors, Matt Bugg and Chris Symonds,  have won silver medals at the Para World Sailing Championships at Kiel, Germany

Bugg, from Hobart finished on equal first points with German Heiko Kroger but was placed second a countback in the singlehanded 2.4 Norlan one-design keelboat.

Third overall was Frenchman Sequin, the gold medallist at the Rio Paralympics where Bugg won the silver.

Bugg won the final race, his third win in the 10- race series.

Symonds, from Wynyard, took silver in the Hansa 303 dinghy class.

The Para World championships were held in conjunction with the famous Kiel Week regatta, with Australian crew winning gold in the 49er and 470 classes.

The young Aussie crew of David Gilmour (WA) and Joel Turner (Qld) went into the final day of medal racing with an unassailable lead in the 49ers.

In the 470s, Rio silver medallists Mathew Belcher and Will Ryan won the final race to clinch the win overall.

Words: Peter Campbell

Photo:  Australian Sailing

26June 2017

SB20 sports boat mid-winter champion Paul Burnell will contest this year’s one-design sports boat class world championship at Cowes, England, steering an English boat rather than an Australian entrant.

Burnell, with his sons Toby and Ollie and young Optimist sailor Bailey Fisher in the crew, today won the mid-winters on a chilly River Derwent by a comfortable margin in Honey Badger.

With six races completed by race officer Nick Hutton, Burnell was able to discard Saturday’s race two UFD starting line disqualification for a final scorecard or 4-(UFD)1-1-2-6 and a net 14 points.

Burnell will be one of six skippers from the Hobart SB20 fleet contesting the worlds at Cowes in August/September, helming a boat called Marvel owned by English sailor Richard Powell, with his brother Tim Burnell also in the crew.

The top th

ree placegetters in this weekend’s mid-winter championship, Burnell, runner-up Stephen Catchpool (Hypertronics) and third placegetter Nick Rogers (Karabos) also will be contesting the 2017 worlds at Cowes.

The 2018 worlds will be sailed on the River Derwent,  conducted jointly by the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and the Derwent Sailing Squadron, with a strong European contingent expected.

Catchpool, steering Hypertronics, won the final race yesterday for a net 19 points, also taking out the masters trophy, while Rogers climbed up from seventh at the end of day one to steer Karabos into third place on 20 points.

The women’s trophy went to Felicity Allison, vice commodore of Sandy Bay Sailing Club, steering Cook Your Own Dinner.

Allison and her crew of Jill Abel, Amelia Catt and Emma Cook, finished third in the final race for a net score of 34 points from a series of DNF-10-5-9-7-3.

In Germany, Tasmanian sailor Matt Bugg is leading the 2.4m class after day, despite a race one disqualification for an early start. The Rio Paralympic silver medallist then won the next two races.

Kiel Week is one of the biggest sailing regattas in Europe with 14 classes racing on the Baltic Sea.  For Bugg and other disabled sailors in the 2.4m class, Kiel Week is a lead-up to the 2017 Para Worlds.

Words: Peter Campbell

Photos:  Jane Austin

18 June 2017

The depth of talent in Hobart’s SB20 sports boat fleet has been underlined on day one of the class mid-winter championships on the Derwent today

The first three races of the weekend event for the 15-boat fleet produced three different winners and seven difficult placegetters.

The racing was in the near perfect sailing conditions, a north-westerly that ranged from five to 15 knots,  gusting of 23 knots.

Heading the leader board after three races is Export Roo, helmed by Michael Cooper, one of six Tasmanians entered for the SB20 World championships at Cowes, England, in August-September.

Export Too sailed consistently with a 5-1-3 scorecard to a net 9 points,  just one point of Black (Richard Fader) who notched up 10 points from placings of 3-3-4.

Third overall is another Worlds contender, Stephen Catchpool’s Hypertronics on 13 points (1-4-8 placings).

Paul Burnell, who will be helming a UK boat at the Worlds, with brother Tim in the crew, won the third race of the day in Honey Badger to be fifth overall.

However, a UFD penalty in race two has dropped Honey Badger to fifth overall on 21 points.  Fourth overall on 13 points is Brainwave (Scott Brain) with placings of 2-5-6.

Best placed woman helmsperson after day one is Felicity Allison who is 11^th overall despite not finishing the third race.

Words: Peter Campbell

Photos:  Jane Austin

17 June 2017

 

Hobart yacht watchers will see some talent in action this  weekend, with five of the seven Tasmanian helmsmen entered for this year’s SB20 sports boat World championship taking part in the SB20 Mid-Winter championship on the Derwent.

The Mid-Winters are being conducted by the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and the Derwent Sailing Squadron with specifically in mind the 2017 Worlds, at Cowes, England, and the 2018 Worlds on the Derwent.

Seven Australian skippers have nominated for the 2017 Worlds in August-September, to be sailed on the famous southern England waterway, The Solent from the famous Royal Yacht Squadron.

Six are from the Hobart fleet:  Steve Catchpool (Hypertronics), Andrew Smith (Phantom Menace), Michael Cooper (Export Roo), Elliott Noye (Porto Rosso), Nick Rogers (Karabos) and Rob Gough (Difficult Woman).  The seventh Australian entrant is Jervis Tilley (Brazen) from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron.

In addition, Tasmanian Paul Burnell is flying to Cowes to steer an English-owned SB20 on which his brother Tim is a crew.

The strong Tasmanian showing at Cowes for the Cowes Grand Slam in late August, followed by the Worlds, is expected to encourage a strong European contingent for next year’s Worlds on the Derwent in January.

All Australian skippers, except Elliott Noye, Andrew Smith and Jervis Tilley, have entered for the Tasmanian SB20 mid-winter championship on Saturday and Sunday, along with other talented local skippers Scott Brain, Chris Sheehan, Richard Fader and prominent women helsmpersons Colleen Darcey, Jo Breen, Felicity Allison and Alice Grubb.

Darcey last weekend skippered the Tasmanian entrant, Absolut, an Archambault 35, in the Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta on Port Phillip, with Breen key member of her crew.

Absolut won the IRC Division 1 and finished a close second in the AMS Division 1, twice taking out the IRC/AMS handicap double in the six races over the weekend.

Words: Peter Campbell

Photos: Jane Austin

16 June 2017

 

With four wins out of five races so far sailed, the Tasmanian crew led by Colleen Darcey, look set to win the IRC division of the Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta.

Sailing Absolut, an Archambault 35, the Tasmanians crew of mainly SB20 sports boat sailors today were in top form,  winning both the IRC and AMS handicaps of race four.

In race 5 they won the IRC division and placed second on correct time in AMS scoring.

One race remains to be sailed tomorrow on Melbourne’s Port Phillip to complete the regatta, contested by 24 all-women crews from States and Territory.

Absolut, sailing under the burgee of the Derwent Sailing Squadron, has a three-point lead from local yacht Jungle Juice (Monica James) in IRC Division 1, with a scorecard of four firsts and a second.

In AMS Division 1, the Tasmanians are three points behind the fast Melges 32 Envys (EK Wotherspoon) representing Sydney’s Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.

Darcey and her talented crew have shown great light weather sailing expertise over the weekend during which the winds on Port Phillip have ranged in direction from north to south and 6-10 knots in windspeed with one brief burst of 12 knots.

Highlight was Absolut’s IRC and AMS handicap wins in today’s race four after a two-hour delay. This was the Tasmanian’s third win under IRC scoring, their first under AMS.

The breeze swung from south to south-east during the afternoon, ranging from 6 knots to 3 knots and Envys got a winning break on the fleet crossing the line 19 minutes and 24 seconds ahead of Absolut in the race of one and a half hours duration.

On corrected time Envys won by 4 minutes and 42 seconds.

Townsville-based Tasmanians Judi Marshall and Sandy McManus, sailing with three Townsville Yacht Club members, continued to have mixed fortunes with the borrowed S80,  Recycled Reputation.

The Bellerive Yacht Club members won race 5 of IRC Division 2 today to be second overall, but under AMS scoring Recycled Reputation is sixth overall. Racing for the S80 Cup, Recycled Reputation is seventh overall.

Words: Peter Campbell

Photos: Bruno Cocossa

11 June 2017

 

 

At the age of 28, Tasmanian woman Jo Breen has already sailed 30,000 nautical miles in oceans around the world, including rounding Cape Horn.

In May next year she will skipper her own small yacht Morning Star in the 5,500 nautical mile two-handed race from Melbourne to Osaka, Japan, with a Russian woman as her crew.

In the lead-up to that marathon ocean race from the Southern to the Northern Hemisphere, Jo, who lives with her parents at Winkleigh on the West Tamar, plans to compete in the SB20 sports boat world championship in Hobart next January.

This  long weekend she will be part of the crew of a Hobart women’s team sailing the Archambault 35 Absolut in the Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta on Melbourne’s Port Phillip.

The Tasmanian team, skippered by Colleen Darcey, is among the favourites in the fleet of 24 boats sailed by women from all States.

Jo Breen and her crew of the S20 Fire of Athena, Clare Brown, Tammara Potter and Mollie Grainger, make up four of the 10 women Tasmanian crew sailing in the AWKR this weekend.

Joe began her sailing in Sabot, Flying 11 and Laser dinghies with the Tamar Yacht Cub before moving up to keelboats and going ocean racing and cruising.

Her sailing record is quite remarkable:  four years as a yacht delivery skipper,  then nine months in the high latitudes aboard famous yachtsman Skip Novak’s Palegic. “That’s when I sailed around the Horn,” Jo recalled yesterday.

“I also sailed a yacht solo from the Azores to England…surviving a deep low in the North Atlantic,” she added.

Jo raced in last December’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Race as navigator aboard the Tasmanian yacht Cromarty of Magellan which won the Corinthian division.

Sailing with Jo in the Melbourne to Osaka race aboard her S&S 34 will be 36-year-old Russian yachtswoman Svetlana Pashschenko, now base in Melbourne.

“We will be the smallest yacht and the only all-women crew in the fleet of 30 boats,” Joe explained.

In between sailing in the highly competitive SB20 fleet on the River Derwent and being part of the Tasmanian crew in this coming long weekend’s Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta, Jo has been giving her boat a thorough refit at the Tamar Yacht Club slipway at Launceston, including a new mast and rudder.

Next of her sailing agenda following the AWKR will be the SB20 Mid-Winter Championship on the Derwent on 17-18 June.  Then will be lead-up regattas to the SB20 worlds and the worlds in January.

“To qualify for the Melbourne to Osaka race, we must sail two-handed in the Maria Island Race in November and then the Melbourne to Hobart West Coaster at the end of December,” Jo Breen added.

Words:  Peter Campbell – 0419 385 028

Photos: Michelle Denney

10 June 2017