Winning Group 2013 JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship, Race 5.
Today’s race sponsored by Smeg
Thurssday, 21 February 2013
Sydney Harbour
A rig choice in the park at Double Bay was critical to the Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel’s victory in Race 5 of the Winning Group 2013 JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship on Sydney Harbour today.
With the ese breeze on the edge of the #1 and #2 rigs, the teams electing to go for the bigger rigs won the day as they filled four of the top five placings.
Jack Macartney, David Witt and Mark Kennedy took the honours in Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel by just 18s from Smeg (Nick Press, Dan Phillips, Dave Ewings).
John Winning, Andrew Hay and Jim Beck had their best result of the championship when they brought Yandoo home in third place, 1m16s behind Smeg.
Allowing for each skiff discarding her worst performance in the regatta, Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel joins Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin), which was placed fourth today using the smaller #2 rig.
Top visitor in today’s race was New Zealand’s Yamaha (David McDiarmid) in fifth place, followed by Appliancesonline.com.au (Micah Lane).
Gotta Love It 7 and Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel each have a total of 8 points after discard, followed by Thurlow Fisher Lawyers (Michael Coxon) on 14, Smeg 17 and New Zealand’s C-Tech (Alex Vallings), also on 17.
Thurlow Fisher Lawyers got a ‘flyer’ at the start and was 22s ahead of Coopers-Rag & Famish at the windward mark.
Brisbane 18 Footers (Daniel Jack) was in third spot, ahead of Lumix (Jonathan Whitty), ASCC (Murray England, New Zealand) and Appliancesonline.com.au.
After a bad start Gotta Love It 7 was well back in the fleet.
Thurlow Fisher and ‘The Rag’ had a great battle downwind, then on the work back to Clarke Island, where Thurlow Fisher had increased her lead to 30s.
Appliancesonline was now third but Smeg was beginning to move up ahead of Asko Appliances (Marcus Ashley-Jones), Gotta Love It 7, Yandoo and Pica (James Mears, UK).
The Rag’s bigger sail again came to the fore on the reach into Chowder Bay where the two boats rounded together for the beat across the harbour into Rose Bay.
With Coopers-Rag & Famish Hotel holding a narrow lead over Thurlow Fisher Lawyers as the pair set spinnakers for the run back across the harbour to Taylor Bay, Thurlow’s race fell apart when skipper Michael Coxon fell overboard.
The incident is a massive setback to the team, which was previously only two points from the lead going into today’s race.
Over the final legs of the course, Smeg put out a strong challenge to The Rag but the experience on board the Rag covered Smeg’s every move in a great finish.
The Rag’s for’ard hand David Witt, who is one of the sport’s great characters, wasn’t short of a comment after the race.
“Did you notice how the top three teams were all the older guys in the fleet”.
“The younger generation will have to toughen up”, he quipped tongue in cheek.
Today’s result sheet, present pointscores and eleven photos are attached.
Race 6 on Saturday starts at 4pm and Race 7 on Sunday at 3pm.
The spectator ferry leaves Double Bay Wharf 30 minutes before the scheduled start time of each race. There will also be two ferries for Race 7 on Sunday.
For those who can’t make it onto the spectator ferry, there are many ways to follow the championship:
Live Tracking:
http://www.tractrac.com/index.php?page=eventpage&id=274
Video Coverage and ‘Pick-the-Podium’:
www.jj18footerstv.com
For all official race results, race reports and photographs:
www.18footers.com.au