27th October 2008
By Peter Campbell
Squadron Life Member Norman Longworth has followed the win by the Warn sisters a week ago by steering his cruiser/racer Aurelia II to victory in Division 3 of last Saturday’s Harbour racing.
Life Members Pat and Joyce Warn won the International Yngling class in Holly on 18 October and followed up with a third last Saturday.
Past Commodore Longworth’s knowledge of Sydney Harbour and picking the shifts in a nor’easter is legendary and, while he was 10th boat to finish in the 12 boat fleet, he beat the lot on corrected time.
Aurelia II scored a comfortable win from Wizard (Darty & Gary Glover), third place going to Bloodhound (A Rodger & M Shaw).
In the Ynglings, the Warn sisters finished third to Pourquoi (Hamish Jarrett) and Black Adder (Gary Pearce).
On a perfect sailing day, nearly 90 yachts took part in the seventh race in the Squadron’s Spring Series, enjoying warm sunny weather with a 10-12 knot nor’easter, albeit rather shifty.
Division 1 was boosted by a couple of casual entries, with Charles Curran’s 60-footer Sydney suffering one of her rare line honours losses to one of the casuals, Dick Cawse’s speedy offshore racer Vanguard.
Willyama won on handicap (Richard Barron & Stephen Sanlorenzo), second to Euphoria (Anthony Coleman) and third Ellipse (Brian Bergin).
In the International Dragon class Carl Ryves was back in the winning position with Sidewinder after a close race with Abracadabra (David Seaton) and Martin Burke’s Riga.
The moderate breeze was ideal for the Hood 23s in Division 4, with newcomer to the division this season, Brother Hood (Tony Craven & Jack Rigg) winning a close duel with last season’s Main Series winner Esquisse 2 (Richard Staines). Short Inshore Series entrant Velocity (Allan Levick) got line honours and placed third.
This was Brother Hood’s third win of the Spring Series, vindicating the owners’ decision to sail with the Squadron this season. Hopefully, it will encourage more Hood 23s to join the fleet.
Closest result of Saturday’s racing was in Division 3 with Spirit of Freya (Nicholas Hogg) beating Out of Sight (Matt Wilkinson) by just seven seconds on corrected time. Gondwana (Peter Edwards) placed third, only 41 seconds back.
Although not a World Qualifying Series heat, a fleet of 23 Etchells raced, with Shindig (David Sturrock) getting the gun.
Close Window »
|
