B14 World win to Australian Guy Bancroft

12:24 PM Sat 10 Jan 2009 GMT

'2009 B14 World Champions, Gu Bancroft and Nick Darlow’s Sly Bone - photographer Fred Koolhof'

Victorian sailor Guy Bancroft has won the B14 World Championship after a third and a second at his two previous attempts, success coming today at the end of a difficult and hard-fought series on Hobart's Derwent River.

The 51-year-old stalwart of the B14 skiffs, a scaled-down version of the famous Sydney 18-footers, clinched victory with a fourth and a second place in the last heats of the 10 race series sailed out of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania.

In contrast to the difficult, and at times survival conditions of the lead-up Australian championships and the early days of the Worlds, today's final two heats were sailed in near perfect weather, with a steady seabreeze coming up the river.

Bancroft and his crew, Nick Darlow, sailing Sly Bone from the McRae Yacht Club on Victoria's Port Phillip, won the Australian championships last week and, after some ups and downs, won the World Championship from a fleet of 50 skiffs, including 11 boats from Great Britain.

Bancroft had previously finished third in the worlds when his club, McRae, hosted them two years ago while last year he finished second at Falmouth, England.

The former International 14 class dinghy sailor has been racing the exhilarating B14 skiff for the past five for six years, firstly with his son Rhys as crew and this year with Nick Darlow.

Rhys this year sailed his own boat, Bonework, with Joey Randall as crew, finishing eighth overall and first under 25 years competitor.

Guy Bancroft finished the Worlds with a consistent scorecard that saw Slybone only twice worse than fifth in the ten heats to finish on 24 points, well clear of the top British boat Seavolution, sailed by Mark Barnes and Pete Nicholson from Whitstable Yacht Club in England on 35 points.

The British team took out second place after a countback from Tasmanians Mark Barnes and Pete Nicholson, sailing Pigs Arse, from the Wynyard Yacht Club. They also finished on 35 points but under the countback system the Brits had had two wins, the Tasmanians one.

Fourth overall went to another McRae YC crew, Dave Lorimer and Raf Heale who sailed Toxic to a third and a first place in today's final races.

British crew filled the next three places - Chris Bines and Dave Gibbons in Quinta Raddison Ltd placing fifth, Nick Craig and Matt Johnson in Team Gill sixth and Mark Watts and George Morris in Simmons & Simmons placing seventh.

Of the other Tasmanian boats, Aviva, sailed by Simon Morgan and Drew Latham from the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, placed a creditable 13th overall and second Youth (under 25 year old crew) while Tamar Yacht Club Commodore Richard Fisher and his crew Stuart McDonnell, finished 17th overall in Bugger the Bone.

by Peter Campbell

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B14 World win to Australian Guy Bancroft

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