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Botany Bay Race provides good tune up for Flinders Islet challengers

Celestial, Whisper, Philosopher and Disko Trooper_Contender Sailcloth all scooped wins as the 2021/22 Ocean Pointscore, Combined Pointscore and Two-Handed Series got underway with a Botany Bay Race on Saturday 30 October.

David Griffith’s JV62 Whisper led the fleet home in 2:46:36 to take Line Honours, closely followed by three TP52s as Treasurer Sam Haynes’ Celestial claimed the overall win from Gweilo (Matt Donald/Chris Townsend) and Smuggler (Seb Bohm).

“It’s good to get into a race like that before the Flinders Islet Race,” Haynes said.

“We’ve got the boat going well and it felt good, we felt like we had it well tuned to the conditions and everyone worked really hard.

“There were big rolling waves, it was quite rough and there were a few holes in the breeze so we were mostly seeing 15-17 knots.

“We had just tuned up our rig after having it serviced earlier in the year and it seems to be setting up nicely now.”

David Henry’s Sydney 36CR Philosopher (a casual entry) took PHS honours, edging out Celestial and Edward Cox’s DK43 Minerva.

Jules Hall’s J99 Disko Trooper_Contender Sailcloth (casual) swept all honours in the Two-Handed Division.

Hall and co-skipper Jan Scholten finished almost 36 minutes clear of their challengers, as they continue to build momentum ahead of Disko Trooper’s Rolex Sydney Hobart debut.

“After a long winter of training sails around the perimeter fence of our LGA, it was fantastic to get out racing, and in near perfect conditions!” Hall said.

“Well sailed to all the boats, especially the Sydney double-handers fleet!”

A competitive two-handed fleet featured Campbell Geeves and Wendy Tuck on the Beneteau First 34.7 Speedwell (second on PHS and third on IRC), Mark Ayto and Anto Sweetapple on the BH36 Local Hero (third PHS, second ORCi), Andrew Butler and Ilter Dumduz on the J122E RumChaser (second Line Honours, third ORCi) and Greg Mason and Clifford Fairbrass on the Davidson 37 Sine Wave (second IRC).

Combined Pointscore

The first points are also on the board in the Combined Pointscore, with Darryl Hodgkinson’s Carkeek 40 Victoire (PHS and IRC) and Seb Bohm’s Smuggler (Line Honours) leading the way in Division 1.

Ian Edwards’ Dehler 46 Wings sits top of the IRC, PHS and Line Honours standings in Division 2.

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