Charter Yachts Series Crescendo outpaces Surefoot

7:54 PM Sun 7 Dec 2008 GMT
Stewart Key mastered a soft and variable 10 knot easterly wind when he helmed his comfortable Bavaria cruiser/racer Crescendo to a narrow 10 second win in the opening race of the Charter Yachts Australia series on Pioneer Bay last week.

Skipper Key and crew proved they were more than capable of maintaining the required all angle sailing speed to outpace their .716 time correction factor but were held to account throughout by Rod Sawyer's Surefoot (.766) and the Tim Osborne skippered Rising Farrst (.724).

All three crews held promising chances at various stages before Stewart Key steered Crescendo to record the fastest corrected time beating the equally well sailed Surefoot by 10 seconds with Rising Farrst another 36 seconds astern.

Back marker Tropical Journey slugged with an impossible task to win on handicap with a 1.000 rating easily outpaced Surefoot by 2 minutes 24 seconds to win line honours but her course time was never in the hunt against her lower handicapped rivals.

This result will attract some aggressive tactical attention when the Crescendo crew line up for the second race this week with Surefoot and Rising Farrst planning to step up the tempo while the crews of Queensland Marine Services, Wobbly Boot, Africa and Idle Time make their individual challenges to improve their positions to win the Charter Yachts Australia trophy.

David Hardman will be in a similar position when he and his Linga Longer crew face up to retain their lead in the Division three class.

They sailed well above their .615 handicap rating last week to record a comfortable 2minute 22 second win over class pacesetter Breakaway (Rob Davis) while Peter Mitchelson remained in touch steering Lorna Rose Too into third place.

The Linga Longa crew will be hoping for another soft wind forecast to answer the expected challenges when the sails are tensioned for the important points this week.

Both David Hardman and crew have proved they are the pacesetters and have the confidence and low .615 handicap rating which should give them another strong chance to extend their lead.

Multihull class skipper Robert Mohle and his crew on board Skate had good reason to be proud of their race win over the class 'top guns' Cynophobe (Peter Millar) and Sirocco (Bob Thompson).

Skate as her low .505 rating suggests has neither the sail power or boat speed to match the fast lane sailing performances of Cynophobe (1.085) and Sirocco (.985) but the lack of grunt in the light breeze slowed the pace of her speed sailing rivals who never looked to be in the hunt in the race for the fastest handicap honours with Skate eventually scoring a 4 minute 28 second victory while Cynophobe claimed the important second place points over Sirocco.

by Ian Grant

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Charter Yachts Series Crescendo outpaces Surefoot

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