Sydney Short Ocean Races

by News Editor on 22 Oct 2000 CYCA, RSYS & MHYC Short Ocean Point Score race on Saturday, started down towards Watson's Bay rather than the usual start line near Shark Island because of the Paralympic Area B-C exclusion zones.

In the first starting division Jamie McPhail started Davnet, the rebadged Sydney 40 Loco well towards the committee boat, with her sistership Sword of Orion close behind.

2GB Titan Ford and Martin James' Infinity III moved from the pin end of the line to lead by the red Lady Bay mark, with Ninety Seven close behind.

As the fleet rounded South Head the breeze was southeasterly at 12-14 knots

Team Jaguar, Sword of Orion, 2 GB Titan Ford, Ninety Seven, then Davnet was the rounding order at the first windward mark. Davnet showed good speed on the runs to move forwards on the fleet and the end of the third beat in nine knots of breeze she rounded a boat length ahead of Sword of Orion.

Under IMS Davnet beat Howard & Susan Piggott's Beneteau 40.7 True North by six seconds on handicap with Sword of Orion third with Karl Stechman's Beneteau 40.7 fourth 17 seconds behind on corrected time.

In IMS Division 2 the Hick 35 AFR Midnight Rambler continued her fine Gosford to Lord Howe preparation crossing the line more than eight minutes ahead of John Brown's IOR Farr 40 Rumblefish with the Ann & David Taylor's Pippin 2 minutes further back.

On handicap Ed Psaltis and his team on AFR Midnight Rambler won by 4 minutes from Pippin with CYCA commodore Hans Sommer Sommerbreeze 3rd.

In IRC 1, About Time Julian Farren-Prices's new Cookson 12 metre finished 20 seconds ahead of another Leasecorp Gosford to Lord Howe entrant Warwick Sherman's new Occasional Course Language but the positions were reversed on handicap. Obsession was third; Blue Chip rating in two divisions was 4th & Nigel Holman's Bashford 41 Zurich, also being prepared for next weekends long ocean race came 5th.