Last race wins on Sunday clinched overall victories in four of the six divisions of the Derwent Sailing Squadron/Quantum Sails Autumn Short-Handed Series on the Derwent
With the five races sailed in mostly light, at times very light, breezes, the light displacement boats did well in overall results.
Winning the last race hinged on finding a private breeze in the very light and flukey conditions, but the pointscore leaders continued their successes in fleet and handicap results.
Tom McDonald’s Elliott 7 Whoopidido started the series with a win and ended with another first place to take out Division 2 (spinnaker) by two points from Trouble (Mark Millhouse), in third place.
Only two boats raced in Division 1 with the Farr 40 War Games (Wayne Banks-Smith) proving too slippery for ocean racer Oskana (Michael Pritchard), winning every encounter.
The J24 Zest (Matt Westland) was another last race winner, taking out Division 4 (spinnaker) from Serenity (Graham Hall) which placed second on a countback from Epoxy Warrior (Mattieu Mongin).
Husband and wife crew of the I550 Dynamo, Steve and Trina Davidson, notched up their third outright win in Division 5 (non-spinnaker) to score a narrow overall win from Rotary (Norm Brundle) with Cool Change ((Chris Bobbi) third overall.
Olivia Sutherland steered Silver Mist to first place in the final race for Division 3 (non-spinnaker) but the second and third placegetters finished at the top of the leader board.
The Young 88 Jigaw (Scott Morrison) won the series by three points from Wildfire (David Berechree) after a fine series of (4)-1-1-1-2. Wings Three (Peter Haros) finished third overall.
There were no starters in the final race for Division 6 (SB20s) with Greg Rowlings in Piste winning the series from Wicked (Nick Rogers) and Mind Games (Phil Reid).
Words and photos: Peter Campbell
21 May 2018
