SB20 Mid-Winter Championship in Hobart
by Peter Campbell 19 Jun 2017 23:36 BST
17-18 June 2017
Paul Burnell winning the SB20 Mid-Winter Championship on a chilly day in Hobart © Jane Austin
Tasmanian SB20 sports boat mid-winter champion Paul Burnell will contest this year's one-design sports boat class world championship at Cowes, England, steering an English boat rather than an Australian entrant.
Burnell, with his teenage sons Toby and Ollie and young Optimist sailor Bailey Fisher in the crew, yesterday (Sunday) won the mid-winters on a chilly River Derwent by a comfortable margin, sailing Honey Badger. Richard Goodfellow stepped in on day one because Ollie had exams.
With six races completed by race officer Nick Hutton, Burnell was able to discard Saturday's race two UFD starting line disqualification for a final scorecard or 4-(UFD)1-1-2-6 and a net 14 points.
Burnell will be one of six skippers from the Hobart SB20 fleet contesting the worlds at Cowes in August/September, helming a boat called Marvel owned by English sailor Richard Powell, with his brother Tim Burnell also in the crew.
The top three place-getters in this weekend's mid-winter championship, Burnell, runner-up Stephen Catchpool (Hypertronics) and third placegetter Nick Rogers (Karabos) also will be contesting the 2017 worlds at Cowes.
Other Tasmanian skippers competing are Andrew Smith (Phantom Menace), Michael Cooper (Export Roo), Elliott Noye (Porto Rosso) and Rob Gough (Difficult Woman), plus Jervis Tilly (Brazen) from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron.
The 2018 worlds will be sailed on the River Derwent, conducted jointly by the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and the Derwent Sailing Squadron, with a strong European contingent expected.
Mid-winnters runner-up Steve Catchpool, steering Hypertronics, won the final race yesterday for a net 19 points, also taking out the masters trophy, while Nick Rogers climbed up from seventh at the end of day one to steer Karabos into third place on 20 points.
The women's trophy went to Felicity Allison, vice commodore of Sandy Bay Sailing Club, steering Cook Your Own Dinner.
Allison and her crew of Jill Abel, Amelia Catt and Emma Cook, finished third in the final race for a net score of 34 points from a series of (DNF)-10-5-9-7-3.