Robert Hunt’s Adams Offshore 350 Attitude will be the first holder of the Cherana Trophy after taking victory in the final race of the five-race series on Sunday.

The fourth race of the series to Pittwater, held on Saturday, had been narrowly won by Paul O’Connell’s Katinka over Brett and Karen Pearce’s Broulee. The two smallest competitors in the fleet caught their larger rivals after the strong southerly, which led to boats surfing up the coast, died at Barrenjoey resulting in the 16 boat fleet closing up and finishing within 20 minutes of each other.

Despite being first over the line with Great Expectations, that result put paid to the prospects of pointscore leader Elusive taking out the series and meant that going into the final race, Attitude and Bob Penty’s Big Blue were tied on 12 points closely followed by Bill Mirrow’s Privateer.

The return race on Sunday saw John Walton’s Vivacite take line honours from Attitude which won the race by some 14 minutes on corrected time to be a worthy winner of the series.  Big Blue held off Broulee with the two boats finishing second and third overall in the series.

The Cherana Trophy will be presented to Robert Hunt and his crew by John Keelty at the summer prizegiving to be held on Friday 4 April 2008.

With the Passage Race Pointscore now complete the final two races in the Short Haul program for 2008 take place over the next two Saturdays to find the 2008 Autumn Series winner and 2007/8 overall pointscore champion. – Paul Billingham