The 75th Australian Titles
Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron
2nd - 5th April 2010
The Norman Booth Trophy
Heat 1 - Friday 2nd April
Garde (Brett Hobson, Alex Johnson) has won the first heat of the DB Schenker 12ft skiff Australian titles. Racing out of the Royal Queensland Yachting Squadron, the skiffs were faced with a shifting 15 to 20 knots from the south-east and a lumpy sea state. With the help of some false bravado and some rigging park trash talk, the fleet decided that second rig was the rig of choice.
Havoc (James Francis and Brad Phillips) won the start with good speed and height. This ultra narrow boat with next generation carbon rod rigging led a split fleet including Garde, Dimension Polyant (Ken Sal, Brad Yabsley), and Lincoln Crowne (Jonathan Temple, Richard Jones) out to the left hand side of the course. The rest of the fleet, led by the local Queensland skiffs and Andrew Short Marine (Michael Spies, Damien Vlotman) hit the hard right. At the top mark, the right hand boats helped by local knowledge had drawn first blood with Andrew Short Marine leading the fleet, followed closely by Garde and Dimension Polyant.
With the angles to tight to hold a spinnaker after the shy wing mark, the leading skiffs were forced to drop early. Andrew Short marine lost the lead after having halyard issues, and Dimension Polyant along with Garde capitalised on this error to round the bottom mark in first and second respectively.
After watching the locals make gains on the right hand side of the course the first time round, the fleet didn't make the same mistake twice and worked up the favoured side of the course. With a more refined rig and more weight in the over pressed conditions, Dimension Polyant had the horsepower to push away the lighter Garde to extend their lead. All was not lost for the lighter crew, with Garde having the edge downwind. This speed downwind saw them capture the lead at the final bottom mark.
By the final top mark, Dimension Polyant had worked out to a sizable lead. Their lead was lost in spectacular fashion with an uncontrolled gybe with the finish in sight allowing Garde to sneak in for the win. Further back, a great battle was developing between the Wingman (Tristan Hamilton, James Fleming), Andrew Short Marine, and Allwood Sails (Cameron McDonald, Brendan Matthews). Allwood sails, buried in fifth position, gybed straight away and split from the fleet. This move paid off famously with the crew gaining three positions to finish less that a metre in front of Dimension Polyant. With the forecast set to build to plus 20 knot days for the rest of the regatta, the racing should be quite close and exciting.
Miners was won by Karoshi who drove their pole
five feet into the mud while sailing back to the club. The mine was so powerful
that the crew, David Cleworth had time to pack the spinnaker back into the
bag, which was stuck out of the water.
1st - Garde
2nd - Allwood Sails
3rd - Dimension Polyant
4th - Andrew Short Marine
5th - Ghetto Sled
6th - Wing Man
7th - Lincoln Crowne
8th - Maersk Line
9th - Geotherm
10th - Hey Charger!
Heat 2 & 3 - Saturday 3rd April
Day two of the dB Schenker 12ft skiff Australian titles was intense. With two races scheduled for the day and the notorious Brisbane short sharp chop coming into its own because of the increasing wind, all crews except for one decided to use their third rigs.
The first race began in 15-18 knots of fairly consistent pressure. With the same left hand shift from yesterday making it's presence felt, the fleet tacked onto port quite early. From the outset, the wider woof hulls relished in the conditions shooting to the front of the fleet. Again, it was the usual suspects who reached the short top mark first, with Garde (Brett Hobson, Alex Johnson) edging out Dimension Polyant (Ken Sal, Brad Yabsley) after a tight tacking duel. Andrew Short Marine, who was involved in an altercation on the start line charged through the back fleet coming from last place to almost 6th by the top mark.
The first downwind saw Garde push their boat to the limit, which let them pull away from the pack. Brad Yabsley (Dimension Polyant) broke his stainless steel trapeze ring bearing away at the top mark but pulled out a magic save to stop a capsize. Further back, the condensed fleet rounding the mark in close fashion caused carnage, with two Queensland boats (Ghetto sled, Wingman) capsizing on top of each other pushing themselves out of the top ten.
With the wind swinging further to the left, Gains and losses became hard to find. On the second upwind, Foxy Lady Two (Peter Polec, Jamie Mcrudden) did their part for Clean up Australia, picking up pieces of boat and a tiller extension.
1st Garde
2nd Dimension Polyant
3rd Lincon Crowne
4th Allwood Sails
5th Hey Charger
With the pressure increasing above 20 knots, the second race saw the boats pushing the boats to the limit of their third rigs. The breeze continued its trend of swinging to the left limiting most tactical options.
At the first top mark, Dimension Polyant (Ken Sal, Brad Yabsley) got one on their arch rivals, pipping Garde to the top mark. With a wing mark to deal with, the top boats decided to test their luck by trying to make the shy angle under kite. This proved to be completely impossible every skiff having to drop to make the mark. At the wing mark, Garde rolled Dimension Polyant to capture the lead.
With the breeze shifting even more, the rest of the race turned into a pure boat speed drag race. With almost no changes in positions over the next two laps, the boats began to push harder to get the last out of their skiffs, with Hey Charger (Nick "Barnyard" Bernard, Robbie "Bruno" Polelick) nearly colliding with the finish boat.
1st Garde
2nd Dimension Polyant
3rd Lincon Crowne
4th The Wingman
5th Andrew Short marine
Heat 4 & 5 - Sunday 4th April
With another day of perfect results, Garde (Brett Hobson, Alex Johnson) has won the dB Schenker 12ft skiff national championships. The short two lap windward/ leeward course was close at the first mark rounding, Dimension Polyant showed blinding speed to get there first ahead of Garde and Lincoln Crown. Dimension capsized whilst bearing away allow Garde to take the lead. They hung on to get there 4th gun, Dimension recovered for 2nd, overtaking Lincoln up the last work.
The second race was a repeat of the first. With the breeze lightening off Garde powered away and were never headed, eventually winning by nearly three minutes. Lincoln Crown picked up 2nd.
This means that Garde is currently in the position to drop a first place. Dimension Polyant is in second place with 14 points, and Lincon Crowne is in third place with 18 points.
The handicap, places are much closer, with Lane Cove Framing (Dave Winning, Ewan Duckworth) and Challenge (Don Robertson, Wayne Richter) on equal points.
Heat 6 - Sunday 5th April
The breeze remained in the South East for the final day of competition, but had backed off to a comfortable 2nd sail.
A close battle unfolded up the first work, after great starts from Allwood Sails and Andrew Short Marine. Lincoln Crown and Dimension Polyant also had a great first work to be right in the mix. Garde opted to hit the left hand side of the course, and picked up a shift towards the end of the work to round just ahead of Allwood. The Wingman also had a blinder to be right in the mix.
A collision between Dimension Polyant and Andrew Short Marine broke the spinnaker pole on ASM, and unfortunately resulted in a early retirement. Dimension Polyant exonerate themselves with a penalty turn which put them out of race contention, they were later disqualified.
Garde pulled away down the spinnaker run in the lighter conditions, while Lincoln crown past Allwood Sails. Garde maintained their lead over the next lap of the course, however Lincoln crown made substantial gains up the final work s the breeze increased and looked set to be threaten Garde for the lead before a spinnaker tangle with their jib effected their boat speed. This allowed Garde some breathing space to go on and record a clean sweep of the series.
Karoshi picked up the handicap in heat 6 to move them into 2nd place overall. Challenge came in 2nd in the heat, meaning they had done just enough to win the handicap overall by one point from Karoshi, with Foxy Lady Too picking up 3rd, only 1 point further back.