Winnings 2025 JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship Day 2
by Frank Quealey 9 Mar 08:39 GMT
8-16 March 2025
Race Sponsor: Gotcha4Life
Trophy: Cliff Monkhouse Memorial Trophy
The defending champion Yandoo team of Tom Needham, Fang Warren and Lewis Brake gave a brilliant display of speed and tactical sailing to totally dominate the top end of the highly-talented teams to score its second consecutive win in the Winnings 2025 JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship on Sydney Harbour today.
Yandoo crossed the fleet soon after the start off Clark Island and led the fleet for the entire North-East course to record a convincing 2m28s victory which puts the team in a very strong position in the quest to retain the Giltinan world champion crown,
The European champion German Black Knight team of Heinrich von Bayern, Thomas Martin and Andy Martin was in second place behind Yandoo from early in the race but, despite a tremendous challenging effort, was unable to stay with the outstanding winner.
While the two leading teams retained their positions throughout the entire course, the battle for the next five placings was a real highlight and ended with an amazing finish in which Balmain (Henry Larkings, Tom Grimes and Flynn Twomey) grabbed third place, a further 2m14s behind Black Knight.
New Zealand's ASCC (Eli Liefting) and Finport Finance (Keagan York) crossed the finish line alongside each other with ASCC getting placed fourth just 1s ahead of The Australian champion Rag & Famish Hotel (Harry Price) was close up in sixth place ahead of New Zealand's C-Tech (Alex Vallings).
It was a chaotic few moments as firstly Finport and C-Tech battled to finish just inside the buoy and C-Tech became a victim of some hectic tactics amongst Finport Finance, C-Tech, Balmain and ASCC. The incident involved more than one protest and results and progress pointscores are provisional.
Following a hearing held immediately after the race, Balmain received a 20 per cent penalty for one of the protests and the other protest will be held on Tuesday.
What is not in dispute is the form of the defending champion, which handled today's North-East wind with as much style as the tricky, light Easterly breeze of Race 1.
The Tom Needham-led Yandoo team established the lead after a great start at the boat end of the line and was already 26s ahead of the nearest challenger (Black Knight) at the Beashel Buoy weather mark on the first of the three lap course.
C-Tech showed her windward speed again today as she did in the first race and was in third place as spinnakers were set for the run to the wing mark at the end of Shark Island.
Rag & Famish Hotel was in fourth place, 1min from the lead, followed by ASCC, Lazarus Capital Partners (Tom Cunich), Honda Marine (Harry Butler, NZ), Vaikobi (Kirk Mitchell), Marine Outlet (Josh Porebski) and Finport Finance, which was 1m20s behind the leader.
Yandoo extended her lead to 30s at the wing mark then to 36s after the run from Shark Island to the bottom mark at Clark Island, which concluded the first lap. The leading four positions had remained the same with little difference in the time margins, The big improver on the run was Finport Finance which had raced into fifth place ahead of ASCC.
The breeze became a little stronger as the fleet headed back to the weather mark for the second time and the Yandoo crew collectively put their feet to the floor and opened up a 1m25s break.
From that point, the Yandoo lead became 1m36s at the end of the second lap and more than 2minutes at the weather mark on the final lap.
Races 3 and 4 of the Winnings 2025 JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship will be sailed on Sydney Harbour on Tuesday, 11 March. The Australian 18 Footers League's spectator ferry ferry will follow the racing, leaving Double Bay Public Wharf at 2pm.
SailMedia will live stream all the action.