Port Hacking Race makes it two in a row for About Time
by Di Pearson, CYCA Media 14 Nov 2016 07:00 GMT
12 November 2016
Julian Farren-Price made it two in a row when he won the Port Hacking Race on Saturday afternoon, subsequent to winning Race 2 of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia's Ocean Point Score (OPS) last month.
Farren-Price and his crew on About Time had a job on their hands, with another Cookson 12, Philosophers (Peter Sorensen) joining the series ahead of their Rolex Sydney Hobart debut and keeping her rival honest.
Philosophers beat About Time over the line by four minutes, but gives her opponent time on handicap, due in part to bigger gear on Sorensen's boat. The end result was second place overall for Philosophers with Bob Cox's DK 46, Nine Dragons, taking third place.
However, Sorensen reversed the trend under ORCi, beating About Time by a little over three minutes when the handicaps were applied. Dennis Cooper's Sydney 36, Amante, was third.
"It's really great to have another Cookson 12 to race against and they are very good sailors," Farren –Price said. "It was an arm wrestle between us the whole way. We'd pick up some and then lose some and vice versa. We'd sail away from them downwind, and then they'd come back upwind – it's a rocket ship upwind."
By all accounts it was a tactically difficult day and an unexpected one, when the rain and overcast sky suddenly vanished, to be replaced by a hot sunny day – enjoyed by pods of dolphins at play offshore.
"It was an interesting day. There were big parking lots, more than I've been in on the M4," Farren-Price wryly commented.
The first big lot was at the Port Hacking mark, south of Sydney. Darryl Hodgkinson's 2013 Rolex Sydney Hobart winner was one of the victims caught out. They subsequently retired, apparently due to hydraulic problems.
"It got quite fluky coming back too and there was another parking lot at Ben Buckler (Bondi)," the Sydney jeweller said. "Never a Dull Moment (Colin and Denise Wilson's Lyons 49) paid the penalty for going too close – they got caught there."
The rest of the fleet had similar stories, roosters one minute, feather dusters the next, some recovering, others not so lucky.
About Time, Farren-Price said, got off to her usual slick start, "At the pin end on port," he recalled.
Principal Race Officer Robin Morton commented shortly after this start this morning: "We got the 24 boats away on time at 10am in a 10 to 12 knot north-westerly. Apart from the usual argy-bargy, they were reasonably well behaved."
Jim Cooney's Rolex Sydney Hobart contender, Maserati, was the first boat over the finish line, the V70 crossing at 14.18.16 hours. Paul Clitheroe's TP52, Balance, which won the Hobart last year, was second over the line and finished fourth overall in both IRC and ORCi.
Quetzalcoatl, the Jones 40 owned by Antony Sweetapple, James Lee-Warner and Anthony Bruce, who will also be on the Sydney Hobart start line, took out PHS overall from Philosophers and About Time.
Race 4 of the Ocean Pointscore Series is the Lion Island Race, which does double duty as Race 1 of the Sydney Short Ocean Racing Championship, conducted by Middle Harbour Yacht Club on Saturday November 26.
Full race results and provisional Ocean Point Score standings at www.cyca.com.au/sysfile/downloads/2017_summer/16_17_Ocean_Pointscore/series.htm