Tasmania’s Export Roo, skippered by Michael Cooper, has lost the 2017 SB20 world championship title by just two points after a final day of frustrating competition on The Solent, off Cowes, England.

In a surprise result, prominent British yachtsman Jerry Hill came from fifth place going into the last Gold fleet race day to snatch overall victory with a win in the only race sailed.

Despite the last race loss, Export Roo sailed a fine series against an international fleet of 79 boats. The performance of Cooper and his crew of David Chapman and Gerry Mitchel augers well for the next SB20 worlds, to be sailed on Hobart’s River Derwent next January.

In between sailing, the Tasmanian crews have been promoting the Hobart worlds with European sailors and are confident at least 20 boats will be shipped here to join the local fleet of 45 SB20s making a total fleet of 65 plus.

Just one race was sailed on The Solent on the final day, in light winds, with prominent British SB20 sailor Jerry Hill clinching victory with a win in Sportsboatworld.com.

The light, shifty breeze held out long enough for team Sportsboat.com to secure a strong lead before the rest of the Gold fleet well into a windless hole.  Sadly, a further race was not possible, giving Export Roo no opportunity to regain the overall lead.

Hill had a net score in the Gold fleet racing of 32 points with placings of 5-13-4-1-1 discarding his qualifying score of 21 points.

Export Roo placed 3-2-10-24-14 after going into the finals with a qualifying score of 5.

Third place went to the French boat Give Me Five (Robin Follin) with a net 39 points.

Jerry Hill had indicated earlier that he will coming to Hobart to  contest the 2018 worlds on the Derwent, and now he has to defend his world title.

Next best placed of the Tasmanian boats was Porco Rosso (Elliott Noye) which placed 13^th overall, finishing 10^th in the final Gold fleet race.

Difficult Woman (Rob Gough) finished 18^th overall, Black (Nick Rogers) 23^rd and the RSYS entrant Brazen (Jervis Tilly) 33^rd in the Gold fleet.

In the silver fleet Hypertronics (Stephen Catchpool) finished 11^th overall with a third in the last race. Smigger (Andrew Smith) placed 16^th, placing ninth in the last race.

The Australian team of Export Roo, Porco Rosso and Difficult Woman placed second to Great Britain in the Nations Cup, Nick Rogers in Black placing fourth overall in the Masters results and Porco Rosso (Elliott Noye) finished fifth out of 62 boats for the Corinthian trophy.

Words:  Peter Campbell

Photos:  Australian SB20 team

2 September 2017

 

Eight Australians, seven from Tasmania, are among the 80-plus international helmsmen who will contest the 2017 SB20 one-design sportsboat world championship in the UK next week.

Britain’s most exclusive yacht club, the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes, is conducting the championship on The Solent,  the intensely tidal, sandbank-strewn waterway between the Isle of Wight and the South Coast of England.

Apart from sailing to win, the role of the Hobart sailors will be to ‘hard sell’ the 2018 worlds to be sailed on the River Derwent in January next.  To be run jointly by the Royal Yacht of Tasmania and Derwent Sailing Squadron, a fleet of at least 65 boats is being predicted.

The 2017 SB20 worlds start on Monday, 28 August (UK time) and run through to the following Friday, 1 September.  Twelve races have been scheduled and because of the size of the fleet the RYS may elect to divide it into two qualifying fleets.

The Australian boats entered are:  Black (Nick Rogers), Brazen (Jervis Tilly),  Difficult Woman (Rob Gough), Export Roo (Michael Cooper), Hypertronics (Stephen Catchpool), Phantom Menace (Andrew Smith) and Porco Rosso (Elliott Noye).

All are from River Derwent fleet except Tilly who sails out of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron.

Another prominent SB20 sailor from Hobart, Paul Burnell, will helm a British yacht Marvel, as he did in the recent Cowes Week SB20 Grand Slam.

As a lead-up to the worlds, four other Tasmanian crews contested the Grand Slam with Elliott Noye steered Porto Rosso to a close second to the British yacht Xcellent, scoring two firsts, two seconds and four third places, beaten for first overall by just two points.

Michael Cooper finished a close third in Export Roo, also winning one race, Australian SB20 class president Stephen Catchpool placed ninth in the 31-boat fleet with Hypertronics. Andrew Smith, sailing a boat called Smigger, finished 17 overall.

Rob Gough’s final preparation for the SB20 worlds was to compete in the International Moth worlds on Italy’s Lake Garda where he again the won the world masters championship in the foiler Moths.

Nick Rogers, who introduced the SB20 class to Hobart, is expected to be a strong contender of a new boat called Black.  He has won many championships in SB20 as well as world championships in other classes.

While the majority of entries for the worlds are from the UK, other nations represented include Ireland, Portugal, France, Australia, Singapore, Russia, The Netherlands, Germany, Abu Dhabi/Dubai and Italy.

Words:  Peter Campbell

Photos:  Jane Austin

26 August 2017

 

 

After 35 years of sailing a Sharpie, including contesting 27 Australian championships, South Australian sailor Derek McCloud has finally won his first Nationals in the iconic class – at the age of 63.
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Bellerive yachtsman Tony Williams’ decision to give the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race a miss this summer paid handsome dividends yesterday when his IMX 38 ocean racing yacht Martela won the iconic King of the Derwent race on Hobart’s River Derwent.
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A fleet of 30 boats, ten more than last year, has entered the ninth annual Derwent Sailing Squadron/National Pies Launceston to Hobart Yacht Race, which starts from Beauty Point on the Tamar River on December 27.

The 285 nautical mile race along Tasmania’s north-west coast, then down the east coast to finish in Hobart’s River Derwent, has attracted entries from southern and northern Tasmania and Victoria and includes two past overall winners of the Sydney Hobart.

Derwent Sailing Squadron Commodore Steve Chau officially launched the 2015 at a barbeque gathering of skippers, crews and their families at the Squadron’s Sandy Bay headquarters on Sunday afternoon.

The official opening underlined one specific attraction of this ‘Tasmanian-grown’ race – it is family-friendly time-wise, enabling Hobart-based skippers and crews deliver their boats to the Tamar Yacht Club in mid-December, then enjoy Christmas at home and then travel north by road at a leisurely pace on Boxing Day for the start.

The Mayor of Launceston, Albert van Zetton will start this year’s L2H from a line near Inspection Head Wharf, Beauty Point, at 1.30pm pm on Sunday, December 27.

The race will finish off Castray Esplanade, Battery Point, Hobart – the same finish line as the Sydney Hobart and Melbourne Hobart races.

Heading the 30-boat fleet is Gary Smith’s Bakewell-White 45, The Fork in the Road, which has taken line honours in the last two races and again favourite to be first home.

However, the biggest boat in the fleet is Mistraal, Jacinta and Brett Cooper’s Beneteau 57, a racer/cruiser.

Jacinta will be the only female skipper in the race, heading a team of family and friends.

Sailing with her parents is 11-year-old daughter Jorja Cooper and joining her will be another 11-year-old, Esther Read, whose father Fraser Read is also sailing on Mistraal.

Both girls sail Optimist dinghies at Sandy Bay Sailing Club and have undertaken extended cruises on their parents’ yachts.

Bellerive Yacht Club Immediate Past Commodore John Mills and Ian Douglas have entered their Lyons 40. Nexedge, which as Micropay Cuckoos Nest won the IMS overall of the gale-battered 1993 Sydney Hobart.

An earlier winner of the Sydney Hobart and still racing under its original name is Ultimate Challenge. When owned and skippered by the famous Victorian yachtsman Lou Abrahams she won the race in 1989.

Ultimate Challenge, a Farr 40 designed to the old IOR rule, is now owned by DSS member Peter Jenkins and has undergone a major refit in preparation for this year’s L2H.

Victoria again will have one representative in the race, the Archambault 31, Remedy, owned by Russell Hibbert from the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron.

Smallest boat in the fleet is Hydraplay, designed as a Mini Transat yacht and with a LOA of just 6.4m. Although the little yacht is below the minimum LOA (Length Overall) for the race committee has given owner/skipper Justin Hickey a dispensation because the yacht was designed and built for long ocean passage races, including the Mini Transat race.

The majority of the fleet represent Hobart yacht clubs but there are two entries from northern clubs, David Allan’s Sydney 38, Obsession and Lawless, Stephen McElwee’s Green 31 both from the Port Dalrymple Yacht Club.

Last year’s overall winner under AMS scoring, Steelin Time, is not competing this year, but runner-up and winner of the PHS division, Paul Einoder’s Beneteau Oceanis 34, Off-Piste, is in the fleet again, as is Malcolm Cooper’s orange-hulled Snook 40, Kaiulani, which won the IRC division in the 2014 race.

Back from Queensland for the L2H is Peter Cretan’s Marten 49, Tilt, a yacht with as-yet untapped potential in long ocean racing.

Competing in the L2H after several recent Sydney Hobarts, is Anthony Williams’ IMX 38, Martela, which has been sailing impressively in recent Hobart long races.

The yacht that won the inaugural race in 2007, Jeff Cordell’s Mumm 36 is again competing – with good prospects of repeating that success. In 2007 she races as Host Plus Executive but Cordell has this season changed the name to B&G Advantage.

For further media information, please contact Peter Campbell, M: 0419 385 028 or E: peter_campbell@bigpond.com

Jeff Cordell’s smart-performing Mumm 36 B&G Advantage yesterday showed she will again be a strong contender for top honours in this month’s National Pies Launceston to Hobart, possibly repeating her handicap victory in the inaugural race in 1977.

That year the boat, then called Host Plus Executive, won both IRC and PHS handicap categories and took line honours from the fleet of 17.

While she is unlikely to lead the fleet home in this year’s 286 nautical mile race from the Tamar to the Derwent, along Tasmania’s north-east and east coasts, she will start one of the favourites for handicap honours.

Several yachts entered in the ninth edition of the L2H which showed their boatspeed and tactical skills in yesterday’s Combined Clubs Harbour Series on the Derwent, with B&G Advantage the stand-out.

Yesterday, skipper Cordell and his crew were in top form on a wet, rather windy and certainly cool day on Derwent for the final pre-Christmas Harbour Series, Division 1 and 2 boats sailing two windward/leeward races.

Racing began in a 15 knot south-easter which freshened to 18-20 knots during the afternoon, causing some sail-handling problems for crews.

B&G Advantage took the hat-trick of handicap results in the first race, winning the PHS category from Masquerade (Tony Harman) and X&Y (Toby Richardson), the AMS category from Martela (Tony Williams) and Masquerade and the IRC category from Martela and the Farr 40 War Games (Wayne Banks-Smith).

In race two, B&G Advantage won PHS from Martela and Tas Paints (Ian Stewart) and IRC again from Martela and War Games. The Farr 40 Wired (Stephen Boyes) won the PHS category from B&G Advantage and Mem (M Boutchard and D Kirkland).

Martela is also contesting the L2H race, taking a break from the longer and time-consuming Sydney Hobart Race while another L2H entrant to win yesterday was Kiaulani, Malcolm Cooper’s yellow-hulled Snook 30 which has competed in every Launceston to Hobart race date.

Kaiulani won the one race sailed for Division 6, finishing a close second across the line to Kamehameha (Frank Chatterton) and taking first place on corrected time.

In Division 4, Ian Johnston’s Zephyr took line and handicap honours, winning the race from First Light (Ben Davidson) and Serica (Charles Peacock).

Division 1 saw Grahame Inglis’ Rousabout score a double, line and handicap, in both races. North Sails (Matthew Morgan) was runner-up in the first race, with Trouble (David Willans) third while in race two Trouble placed second, North Sails third.

Yesterday was the third and final pre-Christmas race day for the Combined Clubs Harbour Series, with one race lost because of bad weather.

The Derwent Sailing Squadron today will launch the 2015 National Pies Launceston to Hobart Yacht Race with a barbeque for the 30 entrants.

The L2H will start from Beauty Point at 1.30pm on December 27.

Peter Campbell
6 December 2015