Australian Mirror championships returning to Tasmania

The 2012-2013 Australian International Mirror class championships will return to Tasmania for the first time in several years, with Hobart’s Montrose Bay Yacht Club hosting the nationals from 28 December 2012.

Mirror sailors from other Tasmanian clubs got a taste of sailing on the waters of the upper Derwent River last weekend when they contested the State championship on Montrose Bay.

Sixteen Mirrors contested the six race championships over eight races. Conditions on the Saturday were very fluky ranging from 0 to 20 knots, northerly to westerly, however PRO Martin Grose did a great job to get in five good races during the day.

Sunday started at 0930 hours and, taking advantage of the katabatic breeze, the PRO managing to get in a further three races, the last one of which was shortened.

For this year’s event, the Tasmanian Mirror Association decided to run the championships using a yardstick correction for gunter versus bermudan rigs. This resulted in a couple of position changes, and added some more excitement particularly at the front of the fleet.

The overall winner was again Kamikaze, from Kingston Beach Sailing Club, sailed by Jess Atherton and Kath Maher with four first places out of the 8 races. Second place went to Pukeko from Austins Ferry Yacht Club (a gunter rig) sailed by Matt Schofield and Samuel Asky-Doran with two first places, and third to Storefresh from Montrose Bay Yacht Club, sailed by Ken Barnes and Alex Kingsley, with one win.

While the champions won by a comfortable margin, second, third and fourth places overall were each separated by just one point each

The Junior prize (helm and crew under 16 years) went to Jai McKay and Eremaya Albrecht from Kingston Beach Sailing Club, sailing Shadowfax, and the Youth (helm and crew 16-19yrs) to Pukeko from Austins Ferry Yacht Club.

The Rookie prize went to Molly Hulton and Grace Edwards, sailing Foxy Lady III from Kingston Beach Sailing Club.

- Jenny Graney