22nd December 2008

And the Spring Series winners are.......

By Peter Campbell

The Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s sailing season of 2008-2009 reached the halfway mark on Saturday with Spring Series victories going to Sydney, Gondwana, Bloodhound, Kerstin II, Pourquoi and Sidewinder.

On a day of fluctuating breezes, the pointscore leaders held their positions in all but two divisions and one class, but a countback was needed to decide the winner in Division 3.

Charles Curran’s 60-footer Sydney clinched victory in the Division 1 Spring Series by taking line honours and third on corrected time in the final race.  After three discards, Sydney finished with 36 points, comfortably clear of Ian MacDiarmid’s Hell Razor which placed second in the last heat to move up to second overall on 42 points.  Willyama (R Barron/S Sanlorenzo/T Stanley) finished third on 44 points.

Peter Edwards’ Gondwana won her fourth race of the Spring Series on Saturday to finish a clear winner of Division 2 on 18 points.  Second place went to Arcturus II (Peter Davenport) on 26 points, third to Campeador (Jonathan & Mary Threlfall) on 28 points.

Division 3 ended with Senta (Terry Clarke) and Bloodhound (A Rodger & M Shaw) both on 33 points after Bloodhound placed second on Saturday, with Senta fifth.  Bloodhound won the Spring Series on the countback, with two first places to Senta’s one win.   Third overall went to Robert Albert’s Norn on 36 points.

The season-long battle in Division 4 ended with Kerstin II (John Bowman/Ken Chase/John Goldie) finishing on 20 points, ahead of Brother Hood (Tony Craven & Jack Rigg) on 27 and Hornblower (Peter Campbell) on 28 points.

Biggest winning margin of the Spring Series was in the International Dragon class, with Carl Ryves’ Sidewinder finishing on 12 points, followed by Abracadabra (David Seaton) on 27 points and Tatsu (Wolf Breit) on 39 points.

The pointscore in the International Yngling class changed as a result of Satuday’s final Spring Series heat, with Chris Harper’s Shining Star a non starter.  Pourquoi (Hamish Jarrett) won the final heat to finish on 20 points, with Shining Star second on a countback from Black Adder (Gary Pearce) after both finished on 21 points.

The International Etchells class ended the Squadron’s Spring Series with a Mini Regatta and an impressive performance by Matt Whitnall in dot as he and his crew prepare to swap classes to contest the prestigious Prince Philip Cup for the International Dragon class in early January.  Whitnall will helm Taranui in the Cup, the Australasian championship for the Dragon.

Whitnall had a score of 2-2-1 against a near full-strength fleet in the Etchells Mini Regatta while the next best result came from Doug Sturrock in Shindig with a 1-5-3 score,  Jervis Tilly in Bushfire with 6-1-6 and North Sydney Station (Ed & Will McCarthy and Michael Coxon) 8-3-4.

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