By Peter Campbell
Tamar River sports boats today dominated results on the first day racing for their Tasmanian State championship, being sailed as part of the Crown Series Bellerive Regatta on Hobart’s River Derwent.
Sam Edmunds’ Resin Dog from Port Dalrymple Yacht Club led the fleet around the course in all three races, sailed in a strong southerly breeze of 20 knots, gusting to 28 knots at times and kicking up a short, steep seaway against the strong ebbing tide.
Designed by Hobart naval architect Fred Barrett in 2000, the boat was home-built by owner Edmunds. It was recently upgraded with a new fin bulb and rudder designed by FBYD.
Barrett's own boat, the newly launched Fang to the Max, placed second in the first race but peeled off a top spreader in the second race and was forced to retire. Another retirement was Shaw Contracting (David Shepherd) from the Port Dalrymple Yacht Club.
More than 200 keelboats, sports boats and dinghies are competing in the Crown Series Bellerive Regatta, now recognised as one of the five biggest regattas in Australia and the biggest keelboat regatta in Tasmania.
Under the Sportsboat Measurement System (SMS) handicaps, Resin Dog had two firsts and a third while under Performance Handicaps (PHS) she has had two wins and a fifth.
In addition to Resin Dog, the other winner today was another PDYC boat, Mike Widdowson’s Pure Blonde which is second on the pointscore in the PHS results and third in the SMS results. Second in the SMS results and third in PHS results is Stuart McDOnnell’s Excel from Tamar Yacht Club.
The Tasmanian trailable yacht championships are also being sailed as part of the Crown Series and today saw a remarkable effort by the Wynyard Yacht Club entrant More Mishief, skippered by Mike Darby in winning all three races under PHS and CBH handicaps.
More Mischief is a Hartley TS16, one of the first boats designed to the ‘trailable yacht’ concept and was home-built in marine ply by Darby 21 years ago. She is the oldest and smallest boat in the fleet.
While many of the more modern fibreglass trailable yachts were floundering in the conditions, More Mischief handled the wind and seaway exceptionally well, finishing across the line in the top ten boats in each race, with Darby always getting good starts and picking the windshifts well.