Living Doll leaves rivals in her wake

7:50 AM Sun 16 Aug 2009 GMT

'Living Doll - Meridien Marinas Airlie Beach Race Week 2009' Ian Grant Click Here to view large photo

Melbourne Ocean racing sailor Michael Hiatt and his high performance Living Doll crew expressed their light wind sailing skill to build a controlling lead in the Meridien Marinas Airlie Beach Race Week regatta earlier today.

Again the promised grunt from the normal South East Trade wind system failed to show leaving the high standard fleet representing West Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland including the fun loving crews from the host Whitsunday Sailing Club to face another tactically demanding day of racing in fickle winds.

However the popular skipper who happily accepted the Silver Medal when he lost the 2008 trophy under the count back rule was in his element sapping up the warm sunshine to produce an unmatched light wind performance winning the line honours and the more important corrected handicap in the third race contested on a relatively calm Pioneer Bay.

Skipper Michael Hiatt showed the benefit of having his crew on the water early evaluating the direction and velocity variance in a sea breeze which rarely gusted above 6 knots during the 1 hour 10 minute race over the tactically demanding windward-leeward format.

This pre-race 'warm up' certainly allowed them to gather some important data which was logged into their computer assisted tactical race plan while the crew headed by talented sail trimmer Bill Sykes Jnr played a major role when Living Doll dictated the pace from start to finish.

The relentless attention to even the most minor wind shift gave Living Doll the required speed to score a runaway 4 minute 56 second line honours win in the 70 minute race but more importantly they outsailed their 1.396 handicap rating to win the line and handicap double.

They were under the pump to re-establish control of the championship after their Victorian team-mate Scarlet Runner (Robert Date) shared the lead with identical 1-2 scores after the first two races.

However the Living Doll crew took control when they sailed a faultless and fast windward beat to place a strangled hold on the result eventually drawing away on every leg of the course to set up a comfortable 2 point lead in the championship over Scarlet Runner while Evolution Racing has sailed back into title contention another point off the pace.

Unfortunately the light breeze continued to test both race officials and crews when they lined up for race 4.

As expected waterline length and sail power again allowed the well sailed Farr 55 Living Doll to break away for what appeared to be another runway win but that fell apart when the crew failed to observe a shortened course signal and sailed approximately 500 metres beyond the new windward mark before they realised their error.

The split second error followed by the time it took to re-track and resume racing allowed Evolution Racing to win her first line honours of the series plus the important handicap ahead of Scarlet Runner and the improving Farr 40 Night Nurse (Russell Mc Cart).

Apart from the costly error Living Doll still remains as the overall leader after four races with her (1-2-1-5) 9 points score followed by Scarlet Runner (2-1-6-2) 11 points and Evolution Racing (3-6-2-1) 12 points .

In other classes Southport Yacht Club Blazer 23 skipper Shane Smith holds a perfect score in the Inshore Sports Boat class after claiming a narrow 24 second corrected time win over the Jamie Jochheim skippered SB3 Dart Airlie Sails while Royal Geelong Yacht Club skipper Cam Rae (Laminar Capital) and Townsville's Leon Thomas in Guilty Pleasures are locked in a match race for the Open Sports boat series.

by Ian Grant

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Living Doll leaves rivals in her wake

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