This year’s Banjo’s Shoreline Crown Series Bellerive Regatta on Hobart’s River Derwent has again underlined the depth of sailing talent in Tasmania’s most popular junior and youth off-the-beach classes.
Just two points separated the top two boats in the high-performance 29er skiffs and in the International Cadets. Promising talent was to be seen in Sabots and Optimists.
Overall results were released last evening after the hearing of a protest involving the Laser 4.7 class and the sorting out of other results due to incorrect entries.
In the 29ers, William Wallis and Fynn Sprott, sailing Westwind, clinched victory with two wins and a third yesterday to take first place on a net 9 points.
Fellow Sandy Bay Sailing Club members Thomas Nikitaras and Silas Hamilton finished on 11 points, yesterday placing 2-3-1, while third place went to Skiffy (Charlie Zeeman and Ethan Galbraith) on 13 points.
The winning margin in the International Cadets was also just two points between two SBSC crews.
Jacob McConaghy and Sam Hooper, sailing Hurricane, continued their consistency of day one with a 3-2-2 result to finish with 9 points.
They just held out a determined last day effort by Hugo Allison and Grace Hooper who won three consecutive races in Shmokin, finishing the regatta with a net 11 points.
Third place went to Comrade (Amy Potter and Annabelle Lumsden-Steel) who won race two and had three seconds, finishing with 15 points.
The regatta saw several optimum and near-optimum performances in the OTB classes.
In the Sabots, Daniel Maree steered Another Cannon to six wins out of seven races (second in the other) to win comfortably from Another White Boat (Edward Hillcoat) and The Fang (N Whitton).
The Optimist junior single-handed class drew a fleet of a dozen boats with Edward Broadby sailing Winded to six wins and a second. Adelaide O’Donoghue in Twiga won the other race and finished second overall.
Just two Flying 11s entered the regatta, Oscar Pritchard and Bailey Stephens sailing River Rat and Lara Recape and Lucia Gasperani in Hard Drive. They match-raced and finished one point apart, River Rat winning four races and Hard Drive three.
Abbey Calvert in Attack Peguin won the Laser 4.7s, winning three of the seven races. Hannel (Matilda O’Donoghue) and Free (Finn Potter) finished second and third while in the Laser Radials Jack Allison scored five wins and two seconds.
Dott Time (Tony Tate) finished second overall, Don’t Be Salty (Adele Auchterlonie) third.
In the adult single-handed centreboarder, the Sabre, Clive Evans from Lindisfarne Yacht Club sailed Crossroads to seven straight wins. Live Wire (Tim Mitchell) finished second with six seconds and a third place while Alchemy (Adrian West) finished third.
In another adult class, the 2.4m, Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania Vice Commodore Stephen McCullum, also won every race.
The iconic Sharpies made a welcome return to the regatta with some newcomers sailing against former Australian champions Drew Latham, Nick Johnston and John Genders, who remained unbeaten in One Hump or Two.
Second place went to the young crew of Oli Burnell, Issi Declerk and Josh Brown sailing Bonfires, third to Borrowed Time, sailed by Sam Hillcoat, his father John and Mike Whitmore.
– Peter Campbell
