Bellerive Yacht Club Winter Series

Bellerive Yacht Club's Winter Series Division 2 winner Saga on the River Derwent © Peter Campbell

Saga of sailing for Chris Sheehan

Longtime Bellerive Yacht Club member Chris Sheehan has added another trophy to his ten year association with his Young 88, Saga, winning Division 2 of the Club's Winter Series which ended on Sunday.

A fleet fleet of 27 boats turned out for the final race of the Eastern Autobody-sponsored series, sailed on an unseasonably warm and sunny winter day's on the Derwent. Race officers got the fleet away in just 3-4 knots of wind, but after a slow first round, the breeze kicked in to a steady 10-12 knots.

Saga ended up winning Division 2 by a comfortable four points while Gavin Adamson just hung on to win Division 1 with his Mumm 36 Madness and Andrew Dalby won Division 3 overall with his veteran half tonner Kharis.

Chris Sheehan is a Life Member of BYC, a member of the Club since 1979, with a close involvement in race administration as well as being a consistently fine helmsman. He is also a member of the Board.

As he has done throughout the Winter Series, Chris steered Saga to an excellent start on Sunday and led the fleet around the course to take line honours, placing fourth on corrected time to clinch an overall victory by 4 points from last race winner Pyxis (Chris Hadrill) and another 2 points to Rousabout (Grahame Inglis).

"I was in the original partnership that owned Saga back in 2001, buying the others out in 2007," Sheehan said today. "The Young 88 is an excellent boat to sail....we have now nine Young 88s in Hobart and we are looking at a Young 88 championship or at least a special race day."

Sheehan has now become a fleet owner, purchasing the SB20 North Sails to race this summer "just for something different" in the expanding fleet that now totals 23 boats. He will also crew aboard Ian Stewart's Mumm 36 Tas Paints.

In Division 1, Gavin Adamson's Madnes from the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, finished only ninth on corrected time in the final race, but had enough points in the bank to win the Winter Series by just one point from Tas Paints, another Mumm 36.

Up until yesterday Madness had had a consistently improving scorecard of 7-4-1-1, while Tas Paints' final scorecard was 1-2-8-4-7. Third place overall went to the Sydney 38 Caio Baby II (Gary Cripps)

Division 1 winner yesterday was Fish Frenzy (John Wearne) from Pirate's Pride and Black Magic, skippered by BYC Commodore Graham Mansfield.

Andrew Dalby's 25-year-old (or thereabouts) Kharis, designed and built to the old half ton rule, held off a late run by Ragtime, skippered by veteran Tom Kirkland, to take out the Winter Series division 3 pointscore.

Kharis won the first two races and followed this with a sixth and two thirds for a net 8 points, while Ragtime finished just two points back on 10 points, also winning two Winter races and sailing consistently well with a third, a fifth and sixth in the other races. Third overall went to Magnum (Colin Gray) on 12 points.

The final race of the Winter Series went to Vitamin Sea (Wayne Pitt) from Ragtime and Innovator (Ian Smith).