International Hogs Breath Race Week 2005 - Day 5
by Ian Grant 16 Aug 2005 09:28 BST
GOLDEN OLDIE UPSTAGES GRAND PRIX FLEET
Eun na mara a conventional timber planked yacht designed by the famous Scottish naval architect William Fife showed age was no barrier when the 98 year old sloop beat her modern Grand Prix rivals on a windy Whitsunday Passage today.
The grand old lady of Australian offshore yacht racing skippered by her proud owner Nicholas Chapman of Melbourne showed she has plenty of racing miles left when she snatched a popular IRC class handicap win in the Hog’s Breath Race Week regatta ahead of the 2003 Admirals Cup winner Wild Oats now racing as Wild Joe.
Wild Joe the first Reichel Pugh designed 18 m yacht to be fitted with the revolutionary canting keel and twin foil technology retained her undefeated line honours record when helmsman Chris Links and tactician Cameron Miles created a clear wind start to have the edge on their rivals the new Reichel Pugh 60 Loki (Stephen Ainsworth) and the Dick Cawse Lyons/Cawse 60 Vanguard.
Predictably these three 18 m sloops all crewed by some of Australia’s smartest sailors became temporarily engaged in a match race before the tactically well managed Wild Joe slowly edged clear on the upwind slog into the teeth of the building South East breeze.
He mainsail trimmer Darren ‘Twirler’ Jones had a busy workload as the breeze continued to build but he always maintained the required power allowing Wild Joe to have the decisive advantage of sailing higher and faster than Loki and Vanguard.
Wild Joe sailing in clean wind extended her lead at each mark of the course eventually finishing 3 minutes 39 seconds clear of Loki and 4 minutes 5 seconds ahead of Vanguard in the 67 minute windward leeward race.
This polished all angle sailing performance by the entire Wild Joe crew including former World 420 champion and the sole female Sarah Roberts-Thomson seemed poised to claim another corrected handicap win until the grand old lady Eun na mara spoilt the party when she completed the course a little over 30 minutes behind Wild Joe.
Eun na mara which first flew her ‘battle flag’ in combat on the high seas almost a century ago claimed a special result for her proud owner/skipper and crew when she completed the race with a 1 hour 37 minute corrected time to push Wild Joe and the well sailed Dekadence (Phil Coombs) into the minor places.