Right royal wins at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week 2017
by Lisa Ratcliff, AHIRW media 25 Aug 2017 14:16 BST
19-26 August 2017
The winter tradewinds returned to the Whitsundays and Audi Hamilton Island Race Week on the penultimate day of competition, allowing for an expanded schedule to make up for some races missed due to light winds mid-week.
Trailables, Multihull Cruising, Non-Spinnaker and most of the Cruising fleet crews took in the sights on various island courses, the occasional Humpback whale complementing the idyllic combination of warm winter sun and breeze all day. The remaining divisions stretched their legs in the afternoon after short course racing on a choppy course to the east of Hamilton Island.
IRC Racing
HRH Prince Frederik of Denmark at the helm of the 66-footer NANOQ he's chartered from the Oatley family and surrounded by a bevy of sailing superstars scored the double - wins in both the windward/leeward and islands course - to be IRC Racing pointscore leader by one point.
"Frederik steered the boat all day and did a great job," said tactician and co-helmsman Iain Murray. "He had a wonderful time; it doesn't get any better than that... beautiful breeze and a good combination of a shorter and longer course. It's all thumbs up on our boat today."
Supermaxi Wild Oats XI settled the score against Peter Harburg's same-sized Black Jack in the fresher breeze, skipper Mark Richards and his team now 3-2 in the line honours count.
"Oats is set up for (Sydney) Hobart mode and Black Jack is set up for light airs; it's amazing the cross-over....it's huge," Richards said. "One boat's so much faster in the light and the other is so much faster in breeze. Obviously there's a lot of work for both boats to do in their weak areas, and then see how we go on Boxing Day. The fortunate thing for us is I think we can improve our light air performance a lot.
"We started the regatta in breeze and we are finishing in breeze. Everyone's having a great time out there; the Prince took a win today, so he'll be pretty happy," Richards added.
Sailing well below the radar in the 66 and 100-foot dominated IRC Racing class this week has been Brent Fowler's TP52, M3. "It's hard being the only non-canting keel boat in the division; we're obviously a bit slower and the others like to beat up on us on the start line," said Fowler. "It's hard when your sails are half the size of the others."
Nonetheless M3 took a second in today's first race, and after a start line incident with Phil Turner's Alive in today's second race, M3's fifth place in race 5 is still provisional.
IRC Passage
Steven Proud's Kernan 44 Swish is undoubtedly in control of the IRC Passage 1 results with one race remaining. Despite the best efforts of Gerry Hatton's Bushranger crew from Sydney, scores of two seconds and three wins from five races mean Swish's crew can sleep peacefully tonight.
It's the same scenario in IRC Passage 2, the talent-heavy crew on Ray Roberts' chartered Sydney 38 Team Hollywood, including Softbank Team Japan America's Cup crew Ben Lamb, tactician Jamie Wilmot and navigator Lachie Paramor, delivering three wins and two seconds across a range of conditions.
"We were lucky to get Ben and also Lachie, who is a very accomplished navigator from Sydney," said Roberts dockside after day five of racing. "With the amount of current here you've got to be quite aggressive with your navigation and I was confident wherever he put us. Jamie Wilmot is on the tactics and the rest of the guys are terrific too.
"We sailed poorly this morning and extra smart this afternoon. You've really got to push the boat around to catch the waves. Being a displacement boat, in downwind pressure we've got to make sure the crew are exhausted and catching waves to surf as much as possible."
Racer/Cruiser
Adrian Walters' Shaw 11m Little Nico and Anthony Coleman's J133 Euphoria are on either side of the tug-o-war in the sexy Racer/Cruiser division. Walters had the edge thanks to a win in race four then in the afternoon passage race their fortunes changed dramatically, a 10th to Euphoria's first place moving them back into second overall by six points.
Multihull Racing is in the hands of Ian Condor-Smith's giant Tag 60 Stardust.
The race committee is considering their options for the final day of Audi Hamilton Island Race Week, on Saturday August 26. Given the forecast is again for 15-20 knots the traditional closing Lindeman Island Race looks set to wrap up the 34th series of Australia's pre-eminent keelboat regatta that has drawn 215 entries and close to 2,000 sailors from around the country and overseas.
Results can be found here.
Many motives at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week 2017
Among the women yachties at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week there are many motives for being involved in the sport.
West Australian April Jorgensen, skipper of the Fareast 28 Calibre Racing, and her partner Jayson Oates were drawn to sailing as a way of keeping April's dad Walter involved in his favourite pastime.
Motivation to re-form an all-women crew on Mista Gybe, the Jenneau 49 out of Airlie Beach, for their second Race Week came from the success of year one.
Aboard the floating piece of history from the New York Yacht Club, Matt Brooks' 1930-launched S & S 52 Dorade, the latest chapter for professional navigator Adrienne Cahalan is charting the best course for the 16.5 tonne beauty - a very different scenario to the many times she's navigated the Oatley family's 100-footer Wild Oats XI around the track.
Dorade is second overall in the IRC Passage division 2 results on the penultimate day of the annual series.
Jorgensen is one of a small number of women skippers at the 34th Audi Hamilton Island Race Week. She came to the sport late, as a way of keeping her dad from retiring and letting go of the hobby and passion that was keeping him younger than his years.
"Dads' sailed for more than 60 years. About 10 years ago he was considering giving up sailing and I just couldn't let that happen so we decided we would get a new boat and go halves."
April and Jayson bought a Davidson 30 with Walter and sailed it on Perth's Swan River: "We got a good seven years more sailing with my dad," she said of Walter who's in his 90s and now retired from sailing.
The pair has chartered the Fareast 28 Calibre Racing from the Queensland distributor and the whole WA crew are enjoying a couple of blowy days to end Race Week. "The boat's a little bit wet, but that's all part of the fun," said Jorgensen.
Calibre Racing is fifth in the Racer/Cruiser division, helped by Friday's second and fourth on corrected time in the 18-20kt sou'easters.
It used to be the case for Mista Gybe's crew that the husbands and partners went to Race Week and only a few of the wives had the chance to be on the crew. So, last year the women got together and campaigned one boat and all the men raced on Not A Diamond in a different division.
Mista Gybe's crew coordinator Linda Gorry says of their first year, "We came eighth or ninth out of 29 boats in our division, so not bad at all.
"We don't get together in between Race Weeks to train and on the first day this year we had a good 25 plus knots of wind. We handled it ok; we are very cautious. There's no yelling; everyone is very encouraging and the experienced ones are teaching the girls who haven't sailed before.
"We love coming to Race Week; the winds can be challenging and it's just a great place to sail. We just want to encourage more ladies to come and join us. What's great is a lot of the men come up and ask us how we put the crew together, so they can try and get something similar happening at their club."
With one race to go Mista Gybe is fifth from 14 entries in Non-Spinnaker division 1.
Saturday August 26 is the final day of Audi Hamilton Island Race Week 2017, when the sun sets on what has been a challenging year for Hamilton Island after being belted by Cyclone Debbie in March and making the decision to rebuild the resort and marina by the deadline of Race Week, five months' on.