12:11 PM Sat 10 Oct 2009 GMT
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'DSS Pennant 1 Division 1 start - Derwent Sailing Squadron's first pennant race for 2009'
Peter Campbell ©
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Hobart yachtsman Don Calvert and his now 25-year-old former Admiral's Cup yacht Intrigue today took top handicap honours in the Derwent Sailing Squadron's opening Pennant race, winning under both IRC and the newly introduced AMS rating system.
Remarkably, the Tony Castro-designed 40-footer that began life racing as a one tonner, has now won hundreds of races on corrected times under the IOR, IMS, IRC and now, for the first time, under the AMS systems. In total she
has won 56 Pennants on the River Derwent, probably an Australian club record.
Derwent Sailing Squadron, the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and Bellerive Yacht Club have agreed to yacht owners' requests to score results this summer season under AMS (Australian Measurement System) as well as under the
established IRC (International Rule).
AMS is run by the Yachting Victoria and is a more transparent and cheaper (to yacht owners) rule as against the 'secret' IRC rule which is run out of the UK. So far nearly 30 Hobart racing yachts have been measured for AMS.
Today's results are provisional as several boats in Division 1 have yet to receive their AMS rating, although DSS sailing manager Tony Nicholas does not believe there will be any major change in the current results.
Line honours in today's long Pennant race to Yellow Bluff went to the Bakewell-White 52 Marineline Focal, skippered by former Olympic sailor and world champion Gary Smith which finished the 28 nautical mile race back at Castray Esplanade at 15:01.48 this afternoon, crossing the line 6 min 28 sec ahead of the Mark Ballard's Stomp 40, 42 South, with a further 23 minutes to the Mumm 36 Tas Paints, skippered by Ian Stewart.
However, on a day of generally light winds on a sunny spring day, the last boat, Hornet, did not finish until 1803 hours - after eight and a half hours of sailing despite the finish for all but Division 1 boats being shortened to the Garrow Light at Lower Sandy Bay.
On corrected time in Division 1, Intrigue won under both IRC and provisional AMS handicapping, taking out IRC from David Taylor's Sydney 26 Pisces and Auch. Under AMS, Intrigue is the provisional winner from Mike Rowley's
Planet X, with third going to TasPaints. PHS went to John Mills' Jibe Talkin' from Planet X (Michael Rowley) and Tas Paints.
With the seabreeze easing away late in the afternoon, DSS race officers elected to shorten all other divisions at the Garrow Light. Division 2 and the 9m class had sailed around Little Betsey Island while Division 3 sailed the course to Seacroft Bay and Blackman's Bay in the river.
Racing was exceptionally close in Division 2 with Robin Fleming's Miss Conduct taking corrected time by just 14 seconds from Moonshadow (Anthony Ellis), third going to Eliza (Kevin Jacobs).
In the 9 metre division, Just Jones (Peter Giblin) had a runaway line and handicap win from Trouble (David Willans) and Spare Time (Shane Powell) while in Division 3 Michael Cooper's Kaiulani also took out the double, winning on handicap from Don't Bugg Me (Peter Bugg) and Firecrest (Peter Limb).
The one-design fleet was rather disappointing in size, but exciting in competition for the small Farr 40 and J24 fleets which sailed three back-to-back windward/leeward races in perfect conditions.
Stephen Boyes took honours in the Farr 40s, winning two of the three races with Wired. Race one was exceptionally close between the four boats with the lead changing several times before Lloyd Clark and Andrew Hunn's Voodoo Chile got the gun. Wired won the next races in convincing style with Voodoo Chile adding a second and a third to her first race win. Hughie Lewis's Euro Central had a 4-3-4 scorecard to be third overall on the day.
The J24s started with a resounding collision at the start of race one between Mrs Pickles (Kaye Roberts) and Storm Petrel (Nathan Males). Mrs Pickles admitted she was in breach of the rules and took a 720 degree penalty turn from which she never recovered to finish last in the opening race.
Overall, the top J24 on the day was Craig Squires' Devine Madness with placings of 1-2-3 while Peter Bingham's Street Car had a win, a second and a fourth. Mrs Pickles did recover to score a win and a third, but overall was
third.
by Peter Campbell
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Double Is Pt, QLD
