Woman skipper's third bid for Launceston to Hobart overall win

8:16 AM Thu 24 Dec 2009 GMT

'Dianne Barkas at sea on her SYdney 38, Sullivans Cove Whisky' Peter Campbell &copy

Successful Hobart yachtswoman Diane Barkas has strong prospects of taking overall handicap honours in the third annual Sargisons Launceston to Hobart Yacht Race, following successive second placings in the previous two races from Tasmania's north to south.

Ms Barkas, again will be skippering her Sydney 38 class yacht, Sullivans Cove Whisky, in the 285 nautical mile race that starts from Beauty Point in the Tamar River at 1pm on Sunday, 27 December.

A member of both the conducting club, the Derwent Sailing Squadron, and the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, she has already sailed her yacht to victory in the Bruny Island and Maria Island ocean races in southern Tasmania.

Ms Barkas is one of only three skippers who will have competed in all L2H races since its inception in 2007, the others being Bellerive Yacht Club member Jeff Cordell in his Mumm 36 Host Plus Executive and RYCT member Malcolm Cooper in his 30-footer Kamehameha.

Host Plus Executive won both the IRC and PHS divisions of the 2007 L2H race, with the Sydney 38, then racing as Asylum, placing second in the IRC rating division and fourth under PHS handicaps.

Last year Asylum finished runner-up to Creese Property (David Creese) in both the IRC and PHS handicap divisions.

In this year's L2H, the new handicap system, AMS has supplanted IRC as the most popular rating system while all 35 yachts in the fleet will sail under PHS, the arbitrary handicap system which will decide the overall winner of the race.

Half the fleet of monohull yachts (there are two multihulls entered) have nominated for both PHS and AMS handicap categories, a tribute to the promotion and implementation of the Victorian-based rating system by Jeff Cordell.

Unfortunately, because of his commitments to measuring boats for an AMS rating, Cordell has been unable to race Host Plus Executive much in the lead-up to the L2H, but he is always a formidable competitor in ocean racing.

Other strong handicap contenders include the four Beneteau 40.7s - Richard Fisher's Blue Sky from the Tamar Yacht Club, Stuart Denny's Blue Chip from Bellerive Yacht Club, Sally and Rob Smith's Helsal 5 from the Derwent Sailing Squadron and Nicholas Cole's Mojo Rising from the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania. Another strong contender will be David Taylor's modified Sydney 36 Pisces, taking part in this race for the first time instead of the Sydney Hobart.

Line honours is expected to be a duel between Gary Smith and Geoff White's Bakewell-White 45 The Fork in the Road and Andrew Hunn's Cape 40 Mr Kite. However, if conditions favour them, the two multihulls in the fleet, Deguello, John Brierley's 14.6 Crowther design and David Laird's Storm Bay could prove faster as the fleet races down the East Coast.

Fastest time for the L2H so far has been 33 hours 22 minutes and 58 seconds taken by the Fork in the Road in last year's race, but with the start now at Beauty Point instead of Low Head, the distance is about six nautical miles longer at 285 nautical miles.

by Peter Campbell

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Woman skipper's third bid for Launceston to Hobart overall win

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