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Leslie Green’s Swan 60 Ginger powered through the gloom of a wet and, windy (sometimes windless) day on Sydney Harbour on Saturday to win the Milson Memorial Cup, one of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s prestigious perpetual trophy.
Ginger led virtually all the way to take line honours, first place on PHS handicaps and winner of the Milson Memorial Cup, and also won the IRC Division.
Originally scheduled to be sailed offshore, RSYS race officials elected to run the race around Harbour marks because of forecast strong to galeforce winds offshore.
On the Harbour, the pouring rain caused several ‘white-outs’ with southerly wind gusts of 25 knots+ early in the afternoon. However, by mid-afternoon the wind had swung to the south-west and eased, causing frustrating dead patches in the lee of Bradley’s Head and down the Harbour.
The weather outlook saw only 19 starters out of 46 entries for the Milson Memorial Cup, with Ginger taking line and corrected time from Julian Farren-Price’s Cookson 12 About Time in the combined PHS Division. Ginger’s corrected time margin was a massive 11 minutes.
Third place in PHS went to Imagination (Annette & Robin Hawthorn) while in the IRC Division Ginger won from About Time and Mr Beak’s Ribs (David Beak). Ginger’s winning IRC margin was six minutes.
While Ginger sailed the Harbour course in 2 hours 47 minutes 15 seconds, the last boat to finish, Soundtrack (Tim and Adrian Cox) took 5 hour 2 minutes and 32 seconds, as the wind virtually shut down mid-afternoon.
The RSYS Offshore Division also raced as part of the Milson Memorial Cup, but only four boats ventured out. PHS winner was the smallest boat in the offshore fleet, Tom Cehak’s Therapy, with second place going to Double Trouble (Steve Wyatt), third to Zephyr (James Connell & Alex Brandon).
Zephyr was the winner under IRC handicaps from Soundtrack (Tim & Adrian Cox).
In the Squadron Harbour fleet, the faster yachts in the mixed divisions also benefited from the mid-race wind change in direction and strength, while the slower boats also suffered the worse of the huge outgoing tide.
“We got through the race in good breeze to finish before the wind shut down behind us,” commented David Kellett, sailing master of Charles Curran’s Sydney. The 60-footer finished 36 minutes ahead of the next boat to take out the double of line and handicap honours in Division 1.
In Division 2, Nicholas Hogg’s Spirit of Freya finished third in the fleet and won on corrected time, while Paul Hendrey’s Half Hour scored a convincing double in Division 3.
In Division 4, the lead changed four times before Dreamtime (Lyndsay Brown and Jim Littlefield) overtook Hornblower (Peter Campbell) near Shark Island, 300m from the finish. However, Hornblower won on corrected time.
Luckless boat of Division 4 was Kersten II (John Bowman, Ken Chase & John Goldie), which had a big lead halfway through the race when the tide swept her onto the West of Shark mark.
Then the wind died away as Kersten II endeavoured to complete her penalty turns and again, and then left her becalmed at the Towlers Bay mark as she chased the fleet.
The weather did not deter the Etchells, with 19 boats battling through strong winds, calms and the outgoing tide before first place went to Shindig (David Sturrock).
Riga (Martin Bourke) won the Dragons, but only two Ynglings raced, first place going to Pourquoi (Hamish Jarrett). – Peter Campbell
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