scott.projectsomewhere

In similar conditions to last year, ActiveAir sheethand Evan took the tiller and steered the boat around the track in a tricky Easterly to win…. just. Not a bad effort for a first timer.

Though Evan is no beginner, the Youth World gold medallist does have some skills.

Sweeney was away “working” at the Grand Prix in Melbourne, and Club Marine was away being shown off at a sponsor gig in Brisbane, so it all just happened to work out we could sail on the boat for the day.

We started pretty poorly, getting off the line well, but being shut out of a clear lane quickly. Unfortunately for us, I had the tide wrong by about an hour, and we kept to the left, out of the tide-advantaged right side. Needless to say it didn’t work, and halfway up the course we were swapping tacks with the World Champions - Fiat, and National Champions - Macquarie, for last place.

A few nice shifts and the top mark bought us some distance on Fiat, and put us just at the back of the pack. We picked a few more downhill, and brought the wind down with us to close the gap on the leaders to a couple of boatlengths and the wing mark. We then took a couple more on the next run, and rounded the bottom mark in 5th.

Nice.

At this stage Evan was lamenting how easy it was to steer an 18. Hmmm.

We pulled some more shifts out on the next work, taking the right-hand side and the lead going into Rose Bay, and shutting Belle out of the lead at the top mark.

A bit of a stressful downwind and an early, slow rounding at the bottom had us still leading - but only just over Fiat.

But we lost it soon after… the timing for the tide was now correct, but we still sailed in it for too long and crossed behind Fiat.

Anyway, a bunch of good shifts later and we were in the lead, by about a minute at the top mark.

If the previous downwind was stressful, this one was ridiculous. We had a good lead, but saw it disappear quickly as Fiat brought new breeze down. We pushed them into Shark on starboard, then gybed on their face on the way back to try and keep them behind us. We then sailed stupidly high to stop them rolling us, and headed into the lee of Point Piper… while the OCS 7 was gaining quickly… Fiat gybed out, we followed later… then gybed on them again on the way to the finish. They gybed out again for the line onto starboard, 7 just crossed them, 7 gybed again inside to cross the line, we gybed again and just took 7’s stern as both Fiat and 7 gybed again for the line, and we crossed ahead by the tiniest of margins.

Fark it was tense… and gybing an 18 once in 5 knots is painful, let alone that many times.

A good day on the water for Evan.

And Sweeney texted Pete afterwards: “good work but tell scotty he’s not my friend any more”.

The official story…

Evan Walker (skipper), Peter Harris and Scott Babbage, teaming together for the first time in Active Air-2UE, showed plenty of skill and strength under pressure to score a narrow victory in Race 5 of the Australian 18 Footer League’s Club Championship on Sydney Harbour today.

Walker, normally the sheet hand on the skiff, replaced usual skipper John Sweeny while Babbage moved from the Club Marine skiff for the race.

Active Air-2UE defeated Fiat (Michael Coxon) by just 3secs in a thrilling finish with Rag & Famish Hotel (John Harris) a further 4mins 56secs back in third place.

Fiat’s second placing today still enables the team to retain the lead in the championship with only one more race to sail – on 1 April.

Fiat has 10 points in the series, followed by Asko Appliances on 17, Rag & Famish Hotel 22, Omega Smeg 28, Ssangyong Yandoo 31 and Gotta Love It 7 on 46.

The race was sailed in a very light Easterly breeze which varied in strength and direction throughout the day.

Belle Property (Joe Turner) won the race to the first windward mark with a 35secs advantage over Asko Appliances.

Fiat had a disasterous leg and was languishing in 14th place some three and a half minutes from the lead.

Belle was under enormous pressure on the spinnaker run back to the start mark – via the wing mark off Clarke Island.

The fleet bunched behind Belle with Rag & Famish in second place ahead of Active Air-2UE, Southern Cross Constructions and Asko.

Fiat moved into sixth place at this point after taking a lower course on the run to the leeward mark.

Belle continued to lead the fleet up the second windward leg before the breeze favoured Active Air-2UE near Shark Island.

Active Air led Belle by 5secs as the pair set spinnakers for the next run back to the start mark.

Fiat made a move and trailed Active Air-2UE by just 15secs at the end of the long run.

The pair swapped the lead up the final windward leg before Active Air-2UE opened up a one minute lead with just the short spinnaker run left to the finish.

The experienced Fiat crew tried everything to take the win and were alongside Active Air-2UE for most of a gripping spinnaker battle to the finish line.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 9:14 am and is filed under 18' Skiff, Sailing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.