Montgomery talks to the Coastal Classic winners

8:27 PM Fri 23 Oct 2009 GMT

'Owner/skipper Neville Crichton on the helm of Alfa Romeo - at the start of the 2009 HSBC Coastal Classic' Richard Gladwell Click Here to view large photo

Top New Zealand and international yachting commentator, Peter Montgomery caught up with the Coastal Classic winners on his Saturday morning radio show on Newstalk ZB .

Alfa Romeo skippered by Neville Crichton averaged 17.9 kts for the 119nm race, and broke the seven hour mark for the first time, completing the course in six hours 43 minutes.

Taeping, a 13.5metre catamaran, owned and skippered by Dave Andrews just missed the multihull record, set in 1996, by seven minutes.

'We had a fantastic ride all the way', Crichton told Montgomery. 'We hardly went under 18kts, it was a dream run.'

'We cleared the field very early in the race. We carried spinnaker all the way to Kawau (26nm north if Auckland) and from there were two sail reaching all the way.'

'From Tutukaka onwards we had 25kts, and a beam reach which is just beautiful sailing. It probably suited multihulls better than us, but we were able to stretch our legs, at the start, and they never got back at us at us.'

'From Cape Brett to Russell it was right on the nose'

Tomorrow, Alfa Romeo sails back to Auckland, and prepares for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, where she will face four other supermaxis, in what will surely be the heavyweight sailing championship of the world.

Greg Roake from Taeping commented that they had 'a magnificent ride, but Alfa Romeo was a few clicks too fast. We just couldn't peg them back - they were too good.'

'Coming into the Bay of Islands we lost a lot of ground, as they point very close to the wind, and we don't - so we lost a lot of time in the final stages.

'But it was a hell of a ride, it was just magnificent.'

'The record was set when it was a run into the Bay of Islands. We were well inside the record at Cape Brett, but having to beat all the way in, it took us about 80 minutes, but if we had a run, then we would have only taken 20 or 30 minutes for the same distance.

'Even so it was frustrating to miss by just seven minutes,' Roake added.

Still at sea, on Saturday morning were seven boats, with 180 boats having completed the course and there were three dismastings.

You can catch Peter Montgomery's sailing show every Saturday morning on NewstalkZB at 0755hrs, or listen to the replay by clicking here and selecting the 0700 time slot each Saturday morning.

by Sail-World and Peter Montgomery

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