19th May 2008
by Peter Campbell
Few yacht owners would get more enjoyment from their boat than Squadron members John Bowman, Ken Chase and John Goldie with their Hood 25 Kerstin II. Nor more wins!
Summer and winter and, Kerstin II (sail number 588) is out there racing and on Saturday she had yet another win to a very long list of successes, taking out Division 2 of the Squadron’s Winter Series.
Ken Chase, who was at the helm on Saturday, estimates that Kerstin II has contested an average of 100 races a year for the past 25 years – that’s an extraordinary 2,500 races on Sydney Harbour.
“In summer, we race her three times a week – Wednesday afternoons with the Edwards and Friday Twilights and the Saturday afternoon Main Series with the Squadron,” Ken said today. “During the winter, she is sailing on Wednesdays with RANSA and on Saturdays with the RSYS, although we did compete in one Sunday Winter Series race with the CYCA.”
Kerstin II & Therapy
Ken could not recall how many races Kerstin II has won, but her most recent successes include winning the Squadron Main Series in Division 5 (now Division 4) for two successive seasons – 2005-2006 and 2006-2007.
Kerstin II was designed by Warwick Hood and built by Halvorsens and originally bought by Dr John Goldie, with John Bowman and Ken Chase subsequently joining as partners. “We’ve been friends for more than 30 years, with Kerstin II’s predecessor a Bluebird,” Ken added.
“Mostly we sail together with a couple of extra crew, usually Richard Waite and Richard Alsop, while my crew on Saturday was the two Richards and Edmund Henning. “We had a good breeze and the Michael Lee new No 2 proved the right headsail in the 15 knots plus.”
Kerstin II won Division 2 of the Squadron’s Winter Series from Peter Clarke’s 11.6 Beneteau Avanti and Tom Cehak’s Farr 727 Therapy.
Ken is proud of the fact that his three sons are all keen sailors. “My ambition is to sail Kerstin II with my sons as crew, but so far we haven’t been able to organise it.”
However, son Alastair raced on Saturday aboard Petite Bateau which took line honours in Division 2, while Matthew also raced at the weekend off the Island of Jersey in the English Channel. Ken’s third son, Jeremy is based in Singapore but races at Bangkok.
Division 1 of the RSYS Winter Series went to Enigma (Garry & Anna Connery) after a very close race around the course with alouette (John & Judy Waring) which saw alouette finish just 5 seconds in front at the finish in 8th and 9th places. On corrected time, however, Enigma won by just over 2 minutes.
Third place went to Arcturus II (Peter Davenport) while Honeysuckle (Ray Harris) got the gun.
In Division 3 (non-spinnaker), Christopher Deane’s steered Tallawonga into second place across the line, close astern of Crackerjack (D Galvin/C Harperk/D Ward) but won on handicap, third place going to Caroline la Douce (Graeme Smith/Peter Jones/Gregory Clark)
A reminder that Friday, May 23, is the deadline to enter the Winter Series pointscore. Compete in 75% of the races and be eligible to win the Mariner Boating series prize of a trip for two to compete in the 2009 Lycian Yacht Rally in Turkey.
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