Idle Time wins Great Barrier Reef Boats Sales trophy

12:27 AM Mon 1 Jun 2009 GMT

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Kevin Fogarty again served notice that Idle Time will be on the pace to contest the Performance Handicap class trophy during the 2009 Meridien Marinas Airlie Beach Race Week series over the Whitsunday Sailing Club courses in August.

The Idle Time crew who have won their share of races on Pioneer Bay again demonstrated their preference to race in winds above 10 knots when they won the Great Barrier Reef Boats Sales trophy by two points over Treasure Vlll (Harold Menelaus) with Wobbly Boot (Craig Piccinelli) filling third place another three points off the pace.

Treasure Vlll was considered to be the favourite to win the trophy when all three crews faced up to the trophy deciding final last week.

Skipper Harold Menelaus had every reason to be confident leading the series on count back but that changed when Ross Winterbourne handed the fleet a repeat of his race three result by helming Bobby D to another comfortable corrected handicap result with a 1 minute 23 second victory over Tim Osbourne's Rising Farrst.

This left the balance of the fleet to settle into a race against the clock to decide the important third place as the final progressively favoured the chances for the lower handicapped Idle Time (.730) to score a come from behind victory.

However skipper Kevin Fogarty had to continue with making all of the right tactical options while the crew remained attentive to maintaining the required boat speed.

The trophy result hung in the balance when Reignition power sailed to a convincing 1 minute 20 second line honours win over Treasure Vlll but it gradually became evident that neither Reignition, racing with a time correction factor of 1.000 or Treasure Vlll .872, had produced the course times to beat their lower handicapped rivals.

Kevin Fogarty knew his chances were in good shape but he still needed to steer Idle Time into finishing with a consistent result to win the important series.

That was sealed when Idle Time completed the course with a conservative third place, 37 seconds and two places in advance of Treasure Vlll to win the four race series with 18 points followed by Treasure Vlll 20 points and Wobbly Boot 23 points.

Graeme Douglas steered Sunflower to a narrow one point win in the Division 3 class series after winning the opening two races.

They appeared to have the measure over the Rob Davis skippered Breakaway when they built a commanding six point lead but Breakaway climbed back to reduce the margin to two points when they convincingly won race 3 while Sunflower struggled to finish fifth.

But the Sunflower crew retained their grip on the trophy when they avoided a count back when they beat the Tui Hergatt helmed Eliza by two seconds in a match race for fourth place to win the series over Breakaway by one point.

by Ian Grant

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Idle Time wins Great Barrier Reef Boats Sales trophy

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