Hobart women sailors today continued to demonstrate their skills in the SB20 one-design sports boat class, gaining top placings on the Derwent Sailing Squadron’s second day of its winter racing on the Derwent.
Champion sailor Rob Gough, steering Difficult Woman, had a fight on his hands to two win the first race (race four of the DSS Battery World Winter Series) from two women skippers and their all-women crews.
Gough won by just over a minute from Clare Brown, helming jo Breen’s Fire of Athena, with just two seconds to Colleen Darcey steering Pride of Athena in a male dominated fleet.
Yesterday’s race was sailed in an at-times frustrating 6-10 knot northerly breeze on a sunny, but very cold winter’s morning. The land temperature in Hobart at the start of racing was under 3 degrees.
Racing today in DSS WInter Series.
Darcey and Brown were members of the Tasmanian team that won the IRC division at the recent Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta in Melbourne, Darcey as skipper and Brown as tactician.
The two all-women crews also placed second and third under PHS handicap scoring, Brown beating Darcey by just five seconds.
In the second SB20 class race of the day, Nick Rogers, helming Karabos, scored a two seconds win from Paul Burnell steering Honey Badger.
Team Musto (George Peacock) placed third, Difficult Woman fourth. Colleen Darcey finished sixth in fleet, Clare Brown eighth.
Colleen Darcey at the helm of Pride of Athena today.
Yachting regatta supporter Gary Cripps scored a runaway outright win in Division 1 for cruiser/racer keelboats in his Sydney 38 Ciao Baby II.
Cripps and his crew got an early break in the light and flukey breeze to finish more than eight minutes ahead of the Farr 40 War Games.
On corrected time Ciao Baby II won by two and a half minutes from the Eight Metre class yacht Juana (Jock Young) and Winstead Wines (Neil Snare).
Division 2 proved much closer, with Hydrotherapy (Roger Masters) and T42 Another Toy (Latham Syndicate) duelling around the course to finish less than a minute apart at the finish line.
Hydrotherapy took line and handicap honours from T42 Another Toy and Off-Piste (Paul Einoder).
The order of finish was also the order on handicap in Division 3: Serenity (Graham Hall), Vistula (Gregory Biskup) and Cool Change (Chris Bobbi).
Words: Peter Campbell
Photos: Michelle Denney
