Savills Short Ocean Racing Championship - Overall

Loki squeaks home

In what was a spectacular final day of racing in the Savills Short Ocean Racing Championship off Sydney, Stephen Ainsworth had to survive a frustrating final race before his 60-footer Loki was confirmed the winner of IRC Division One, and the outright winner of the IRC championship division.

However, the win came by the narrowest of margins. In beating Leslie Green’s Swan 60, Ginger, into fourth spot by just 22 seconds in what was a 90 minute race, Loki was able to secure the Savills IRC crown by just half-a-point from Ray Roberts’ Cookson 50, Quantum Racing. Loki’s situation was also helped by the fact that two yachts that were not featuring in the overall points, Graeme Wood’s TP52, Wot Yot, and Steven David’s CBTF 60, Wild Joe, finished first and second in Race Four, forcing Quantum Racing back to third on corrected time. The overall results saw Loki with 9 points, Quantum Racing 9.5 and Ginger 13.5.

The championship result leaves no doubt that both Loki and Quantum Racing are on the pace when it comes to considering the favourites for top handicap honours in next month’s Rolex Sydney to Hobart race.

Today’s competition was sailed in an 18-20 knot southerly and quite nasty, short seas, which were enhanced by the backwash coming from the high cliffs that make up the entrance to Sydney harbour.

There were some powerful results in two of the five other classes contesting the Savills Championship. In the Sydney 38 One-Design division Steve Kulmar continued on with the fine form he showed at Hamilton Island Race Week by winning four of the six races with Shining Sea. He topped the points table with 10 points, followed by Transfusion (Guido Belgiorno-Nettis) 23 points and Outlaw (Alan and Tom Quick) 39 points. The one man probably as happy as Kulmar in this division today was 79-year old Lou Abrahams who scored a third and fourth with his Sydney-Hobart race entry, Challenge – a result that gave him fifth overall in a 21-boat feet.

Similar domination to Kulmar’s came in the Farr 40 division where Lang Walker guided Kokomo to five wins in six races. That gave Walker the Savills Championship with a score of 8 points over Estate Master (Martin Hill) 18 points and Black Snake (Michael Milne) 22 points.

The hard luck story of the Savills Championship came in the Sydney 32 division where, after winning the first three of the four races, Anna and Martin Cross’ yacht, IF, was destined to take the title. But a broken forestay fitting in the last race forced them to retire, and that handed outright victory to John Groves’ Reality over IF, with Quickie (Stuart Muirhead) third.

The IRC Division 2 was won by Pittwater sailor Bill Ebsary at the helm of Le Billet from Archambault (Glenn Coulton) and Brilliant (Howard Piggott) while the PHS class went to Viva la Vita (Tony Bates) from Fincorp More Witchcraft (John Cameron) and Merlin (John Lehmann).