8:31 AM Thu 25 Feb 2010 GMT
Adelaide yacht Secret Men's Business 3.5, fast and well-crewed, headed off spirited competition from the very similar Melbourne yacht Scarlet Runner, to win the 'grand prix' IRC division of the Lexus Lincoln Week regatta, which concluded at Port Lincoln today.
Both yachts, newly launched for this season, are similar sized and from the same San Diego-based design firm Reichel/Pugh.
Secret Men's, a Reichel/Pugh 51, is owned and skippered by Geoff Boettcher from the Cruising Yacht Club of South Australia; Scarlet Runner, a slightly bigger Reichel/Pugh 52 is owned and skippered by Robert Date, from Sandringham Yacht Club.
Scarlet Runner is slightly faster downwind under bigger asymmetric spinnakers, for which she has carry a slightly less favourable handicap.
Her downwind advantaqe helped Scarlet Runner finish first and win the 60th Lexus Adelaide-Port Lincoln race on overall IRC handicap last weekend, with Secret Men's second.
Secret Men's completed a very consistent four-day, six-race, Lexus Lincoln Week regatta with two seconds in the two short windward-return races sailed today to win by nine points from Scarlet Runner.
Third, another 2.5 points behind, was the Rolex Sydney-Hobart IRC overall race winner Two True, a stock production Beneteau First 40 owned and skippered by Andrew Saies from the CYCSA, which ended the regatta with a third and a win today.
Scarlet Runner offered spirited competition to Secret Men's but, especially in the short-course races, Boettcher's crew showed the advantage of sailing together longer. Scarlet Runner's crew had not all sailed together before the Lexus Adelaide-Lincoln race and the Lexus Lincoln Week regatta.
This afternoon Secret Men's, manned by Boettcher's delivery crew left Port Lincoln to sail to Sydney for the Sydney Harbour regatta, second event in the Australian IRC championship, to be conducted by Middle Harbour Yacht Club. Secret Men's Business 3.5 won the first event, in Geelong in January.
'We planned on being a little bit conservative today and two seconds got us into being overall winner,' said Boettcher. 'It was a great workout for our crew, who will now go into the Sydney IRC championship event.
'Lexus Lincoln Week has been a good competitive regatta. Having Scarlet Runner here has kept us on our toes and should put us into good stead for Sydney.'
Today's racing was in ideal conditions with an easterly breeze of 10-12 knots for the first race building to 12-14 for the second.
Secret Men's began the day with a mistake at the start of race five.
Again trying for the boat-end start that worked for her so well in race four the previous day, this time she got pushed over early in a group of boats with the same idea.
In just avoiding a collision with Scarlet Runner, stacked up on the line below her, she was over the line at the start signal. And having to wait for the traffic around her to subside, she was slow in returning to re-start.
That handed Scarlet Runner a long early race lead. Secret Men's made some upwind gains to finish 1min 8sec behind Scarlet Runner. Scarlet Runner won by just two seconds from Secret Men's, with Two True third, another 29 seconds behind.
Two True, with veteran Adelaide offshore sailor Dick Fidock contributing on tactics, from a very good mid-line start won the last race on IRC corrected time by 40 seconds from Secret Men's with another 24 seconds to Scarlet Runner.
Secret Men's and Scarlet Runner from conservative starts had a close race-long duel, which Scarlet Runner eventually won by 28secs to take finishing line honours.
Divisional winners
Andrew Corletto's Sydney 38 Shining Sea from the Cruising Yacht Club of South Australia won the performance handicap division overall with 30 points from Scarlet Runner (31) with the Sydney 47 Fresh (Kym Clarke, Port Lincoln YC), 34, third.
David Knight's Austral Clubman 8.5 White Knight, from the CYCSA, won the trailables/Etchells division with 11.5 points from Aussie Blue (Philip Kelly, a Noelex 25 from the PLYC, 17 points and Bohica (Todd Bartlett), a Boatspeed 23 from the Victor Harbour YC, 24.5.
Cruising division was won by the Nicholson 45 Old Nick (Craig Thomas, CYCSA), 11 points, from the Van Der Stadt 34 Red Jam (Gary Sinton), 13 points on a placings countback from Peer Gynt (Douglas Gladman), Port Adelaide SC, 13 points.
For full results go to:
www.plyc.com.au
by Nicole Haack
|
Manly, QLD
