Idle Time ready for Meridien Marinas Airlie Beach Race Week

4:15 AM Mon 20 Jul 2009 GMT

'Idle Time - Meridien Marinas Airlie Beach Race Week 2008' Sail-World.com /AUS &copy Click Here to view large photo

Whitsunday Sailing Club Commodore Kevin Fogarty and the Idle Time crew have continued to show their class to lead the progressive points table in the weekly sprint race championship on Pioneer Bay.

Over the past six months the Idle Time crew have managed to race consistently is a varied range of wind and sea conditions winning the Airlie Sails trophy in January followed with a third in the Cumberland Yacht Charters series in April and scoring an impressive victory in The Great Barrier Reef Boat Sales trophy held during May.

Idle Time continued to express her consistent boat speed with an outstanding corrected handicap win in the 220n/ml Dent to Dunk Island race which suggests they will add further important results to their racing log book when the well sailed sloop lines up to contest the Meridien Marinas Airlie Beach Performance Handicap class championship over their favoured island passage race courses from August 13-20.

Their match up against club rivals Jeff Brown in 007, Tim Osborne's Rising Farrst and the Craig Piccinelli skippered Wobbly Boot is expected to feature some close boat on boat racing with all four crews keen to win the Whitsunday Sailing Club boat of the series trophy.

However while the Idle Time crew have the points to suggest they deserve to be the favourite the pressure will on to maintain their all angle boat speed to finish ahead of the challengers particularly skipper Craig Piccinelli who has won the 'Boss Hog' trophy before and makes no secret about his preparation and tactical plan to win next month.

The competitive attitude of the 007 crew also suggests that Jeff Brown will be a front line contender following their win in the Cumberland Yacht Charters trophy.

But skipper Brown who is yet to officially lodge an entry is not prepared to make any personal predictions on the results however deep down he has a desire to steer 007 to win the boat of the series trophy when the 'battle lines' are drawn on Pioneer Bay next month.

Meanwhile the local fleet will continue to refine their individual skill and tactical strategy during the important Bay Race series on Sunday August 2.
Generally the results from this full scale evaluation trial provide a good guide however there is a rumour suggesting that there may be some 'sandbagging' in an effort to secure a more favourable time correction factor.

This practice has been employed in the past but has never fooled the race committee or the handicap officials.

They will again apply a fair system with Idle Time because of her design and age starting with a lower .739 correction factor and a challenge to generate the required boat speed to finish ahead of Wobbly Boot .779, Rising Farrst .780 and 007 .838 in what should develop into an interesting tactical arm wrestle for the best performed local boat prize between the evenly matched crews.

by Ian Grant

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Idle Time ready for Meridien Marinas Airlie Beach Race Week

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