Day two of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) Trophy Series saw another beautiful day on Sydney Harbour in a building 10-15 knot nor ‘east sea breeze.
After their IRC Division 1 win on day one of the series, Marcus Blackmore AM’s TP52 Hooligan had another great start, trailing only to Christian Beck’s 100-foot super maxi InfoTrack out of the heads. After holding off Hugh Ellis’ bigger RP63 Voodoo all the way to the top mark the team look set to continue their strong performance in their bid for the CYCA Trophy.
After reaching the top mark in the building nor ‘easterly breeze, InfoTrack was able to stretch her legs and accelerate towards the finish line ahead of the chasing pack.
Throughout the course of the day both Voodoo and Hooligan were inseparable. The distance when rounding the top marks was within meters with neither being able to shake the other. When it came down to the pointy end it was neck and neck coming back through Sydney Heads. The tussle continued the full length of the harbour, at which only eight seconds seperated the two grand prix racers with Marcus Blackmore’s Hooligan sneaking over in front.
With this continued performance, Hooligan was able to take a convincing series win in IRC Division 1 with a perfect score of two wins.
The IRC Division 2 win from day 1 went to Bob Cox’s DK46 Nine Dragons who managed to hold off strong competition from Bruce Taylor’s Caprice 40 Chutzpah and Mark Gorbatov & Mark Siebert’s Beneteau First 40 Blink. For day 2 Nine Dragons started off in fine form with a clean start and was able to hold on to the leading pack as they crossed the heads and headed to the top mark. Throughout the day Nine Dragons were able to piece together a perfect race claiming 1st overall for race two and the series.
The fight for second was hotly contested with only four minutes separating second to fourth place on corrected time, of which Michael Spies and his team on Mark Twain came out on top. The second place meant that they were able to break the tie with Bruce Taylor’s Schutzpah who slipped in to third.
In ORCi Hugh Ellis’ Voodoo was able to take first place in a tie between themselves and Seb Bohm’s Smuggler, with Chutzpah in third.
PHS also saw a a close battle with Nine Dragons winning the tie with Smuggler ahead of Les Goodridge’s Wax Lyrical.
Click the image below to check out the gallery from the start and don’t forget you can stay up to date with the Series right here on Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s website www.cyca.com.au as well as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages.
