Tasmanians take victory at Dragon and Moth nationals

Two Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania members today sailed to victory in Australian championships, Rob Gough taking out the International Moth national title on Victoria’s Port Phillip, and Nick Rogers unbeatable in the Prince Philip Cup on the River Derwent.

He won the Moth nationals, sailing Altitude, at Mornington on the bay’s eastern shore, notching up a third and a fourth on the final day to beat defending champion Scott Babbage from Sydney by just two points in a fleet of 42 Moth sailors from around the nation.

In a week of spectacular racing in strong winds and rough seas, Gough sailed an outstanding series recording four wins, a second, two thirds and a fourth place.

Two other Tasmanians contested the Moth nationals with Julian Salter finishing 10^th overall, scoring two sixth placings on the final day, while Will Logan placed 22^nd.  World Moth champion and Olympic 49er class skipper Nathan Outteridge, from Lake Macquarie, NSW, finished fifth overall.   

In the Prince Philip Cup, Rogers today scored a first and second with Karabos IX, a Tasmanian built Ridgeway Dragon, making him unbeatable going into tomorrow’s seventh and final race.

In a remarkably consistent series, Rogers so far has had four wins and two seconds for a net 6 points, 11 points clear of his nearest rival, British yachtsman Robert Campbell from Burnham-on-Crouch, east of London. 

Sailing Indulgence, Campbell is on 17 points, three points clear of Ridgeway, skippered by Steven Shield, also from the RYCT, who is on 20 points after scoring his second win of the series in race six.

Rogers admitted he was lucky to win race five today. “I drifted faster than anyone else” in the light and flukey breeze,” he said. Campbell and Shield were duelling for the lead in race five, but sailed into a windless ‘hole’, with the rest of the fleet sailing around them. 

Campbell finished 10^th, Shield 12^th, their worst races so far, with Rogers winning from two other local boats, Leander II (Stuart Job) and Leander (Stephen Henley).

In race six, Shield sailed Ridgeway to the front soon after the start in the fresh and steady south-easterly breeze, and was never headed. Rogers came from astern to split Campbell and West Australian Sandy Anderson, sailing Linnea, to snatch second place, with Campbell finishing third, beating Anderson by just three seconds.

It was game, set and match to the Rogers and his crew of Leigh Behrens and Simon Burrows, giving Rogers his 10^th win as a helmsman in the Prince Phillip Cup, plus one as a crew,  the seventh Cup win for Behrens and the fourth for Burrows as crew in the vintage former Olympic keelboat class.

Rogers began his sailing career in Mirror dinghies, winning four Australian championships, before making a quantum leap into the International Dragon class in 1987, winning his first Prince Philip Cup with Karabos VI on the Derwent in 1989.   In addition to his record run of wins in the Prince Philip Cup Australasian championship, he has also won a world champion in Dragons.

- Peter Campbell