18th April 2008
by Peter Campbell
A huge fleet of 50 boats will set sail on Saturday in the 39th annual Squadron Cruise, a unique event on the Australian yachting calendar.
Timed to coincide with the autumn school holidays in New South Wales, the Cruise will see many boats crewed by the family, with friends along to make up the experience.
Spread over over the entire week, the Cruise this year is again centred on the picturesque Pittwater/Broken Bay/Hawkesbury River area north of Sydney and is a delightful combination of offshore passage races, inshore races and raft-ups at such anchorages as Hallets Beach, Mushroom Bay (Akuna), Pinta Bay, Waratah Bay and Refuge Bay.
The crew of the J35 Soundtrack will be all members of the Ingate family, headed by the patriarch, 82-year-old Gordon Ingate, the America’s Cup, Olympic and Admiral’s Cup skipper and recent winner of the Prince Philip Cup as International Dragon Class national champion.
This will be Gordon’s personal 39th Squadron Cruise, having sailed in every Cruise since the inaugural event.
Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron Commodore Bill Wood, skippering Kookaburra III, will be joined by three Past Commodores in their boats, Rex Harrison, Jim Dunston and Bruce Dickson, and a Past Commodore of the Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club, Tony Denham.
The Cruise comprises three racing divisions – a Spinnaker Division and two Non Spinnaker Divisions – with three winners of these divisions in last year’s Cruise defending their titles.
Iain Moray, sailing Sienna III will be defending the New York Yacht Club Trophy for overall winner of the Spinnaker Division, Nigel Stoke the Windsong Trophy with Fidelis in the Non Spinnaker Division 1 and Tony Denham the Bob Tinning Trophy with Loose Goose in the Non Spinnaker Division 2. Loose Goose last year also won the Alan Payne Memorial Trophy for the yacht with the lowest aggregate corrected times in the passage races.
While most of the competitors in the Cruise come from the RSYS, CYCA and RPAYC, John Morrison is flying out from Switzerland to sail his newly launched X43 Savannah Moon.
Several other new boats will be competing, including Steve Austin’s Bavaria 34 Nemo, along with successful summer season competitors such as Jackie Clare (Geoff and Debbie Davidson), Ian MacDiarmid’s The Tavern, Bruce Dickson’s Norske and Julian Farren-Price’s About Time, all electing to sail in the more relaxing Non Spinnaker Divisions.
After 30 years of enjoyable cruising Chris Read’s Rafiki will be racing for the first time in the Squadron Cruise – with the lowest handicap rating in Non Spinnaker Division 2.
Cruise captain for the second year is Simon Coventry who is sailing one of the smaller boats in the fleet, Gannet, a Hood/Halvorsen 25.
Rafting up in the beautiful secluded bays of the Hawkesbury River epitomises the concept of the Squadron Cruise, starting on Saturday evening with the Hallets Beach Happy Hour.
A feature since its inception has been the daily ‘Cruise News’ newsletter with contributions from competitors.
The Cruise starts tomorrow with a short ocean passage race from Sydney Harbour to Pittwater, then on the following days there will be three inshore races in the Pittwater/Broken Bay area, an offshore race around marks in Broken Bay and finally an ocean passage race from a starting line off Barrenjoey Head back to Sydney.
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