Race 8 of the Audi Centre Sydney Winter Series started with the standard sunny morning and westerly breeze filling in under the Harbour Bridge. By 11:30am the breeze started to die and swing in to the south where it was expected to build to a steady 10-12 knots. This change didn’t eventuate until many of the boats were on their way back from the Kirribilli turning mark towards Bradleys Head and down the harbour.
Colin Geeves and the team aboard Speedwell managed to put on a good show coming away with the win in PHS DivE. Campbell (the son of Colin who also celebrated his birthday on Saturday) was elated with the performance.
“It was a great day, we had all the ladies out there doing the important jobs and the men just ran around doing the rest,” Campbell said.
The team features some very talented women including Tara Blanc-Ramos, Maike Muth, Katherine Bennett and Mel Geeves, with some of team also recently returning from competing in the newly re-instated PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race.
“It’s very much a family affair on this boat; father, son and daughter in-law! We just like going out and having a bit of fun,” Campbell said. “We aren’t at the top of the leader board in our division but it’s always nice to have a win.”
With Speedwell sitting fourth in their division and only four points separating second to fourth position, they sit in a strong position to be on the podium at the end of the series.
Sarah Goddard-Jones and her crew onboard Wine-Dark-Sea were able to navigate the transitioning westerly to convert some large gains in the first two legs of the race to take out the win in PHS DivB.
“We were always expecting the southerly to come in, but it was probably a bit later than we expected,” Sarah said.
“I think we were a little bit lucky on our first work, after we started it went a bit westerly, then a bit southerly and then back to the west. We didn’t go for a kite on the first rounding thinking that it was going to be a bit tight after looking at some of the other boats. The boat reaches well under two sails, so we planned for that and managed to pass most of our fleet on that second leg.”
The crew onboard Wine-Dark-Sea are currently sitting in first place in their division for the series. However, they won’t be competing in the next race which means that there is an opportunity for points to be gained by boats like Anto Sweetapple’s Quetzalcoatl who sits in second place and only five points behind them.
“We aren’t here next week so that’s a big worry for us,” Sarah said.
“We went out there with a view to make sure that we consolidated our position today. We are going to have to pull all stops out on the last race to make sure that we can keep our top spot.”
Other divisional winners included; PHS DivA1 – Matt Donald’s Gweilo, PHS DivD – P Stubbs’ Irukandji, PHS DivF – David Mason’s Europa, PHS DivG – Shane Diethelm’s Sumatra II, PHS DivJ1 – Larki Missiris’ Wild One, PHS DivJ2 – Phil King’s Salona, PHS DivK – Herman Heiligers’ Hubcap2 and IRC Div1 – Zoe Taylor’s Grace O’Malley.
Full results can be found at the CYCA results page with images from the day at the CYCA Facebook page.
