18ft Skiffs - 2019 JJ Giltinan Championship, Races 6 & 7
Thursday, 7 March 2019 - Sydney Harbour
The New Zealand 18ft Skiff teams ASCC and Honda Marine shared the honours with comfortable wins in Races 6 and 7 on Day 5 of the Winning Group 2019 JJ Giltinan Championship on Sydney Harbour today.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
ASCC (Josh Porebski, Jack Simpson, Dave Hazard), the current NZ champion, easily won the first race of the day, then defending JJ Giltinan champion Honda Marine (David McDiarmid, Matthew Steven, Brad Collins) won the latter race.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
With just two more races to be sailed in the championship over the weekend, Honda Marine has a net score of 10 points, and a discard of only four points, and holds a strong grip on the title.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
Conditions were far from perfect as a light, shifting SE breeze, which faded a little over the day, made things difficult for all teams.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
In today’s first race, ASCC dominated the latter half of the race to go on to a two minute 13 second win over the early race leader Asko Appliances (James Dorron, Harry Bethwaite, Trent Barnabas), with Winning Group (John Winning Jr., Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton) just 12 seconds further back in third place.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
Honda Marine tightened the grip on the trophy in Race 7 when the team produced an unbelievable recovery to defeat ASCC by 17 seconds, with the consistent Winning Group another one minute and 19 seconds back in third place.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
Progress Net points with only two more races left in the regatta show Honda Marine on 10 points, Winning Group on 18 points, Smeg 19, Asko Appliances 27, ASCC on 30, and Bing Lee (Micah Lane) on 47 points.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
The day started well enough for the Australians as Asko Appliances held the lead over the first half of Race 6, but was unable to hold off the ASCC challenge when the two teams chose to go opposite ways (around Shark Island) to reach the top mark on lap two of the course.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
There was a great (and welcomed) surprise in the latter race when Heinrich von Bayern’s German Marinepool team led the 25-boat fleet to the top mark with a 30 second break over ASCC and Smeg.
Smeg was too fast downwind but the German team remained competitive to be in the top three to round the bottom mark.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
The Smeg team went to the left of Shark Island on the beat back into the top mark in Rose Bay but the move didn’t pay off as the two New Zealand teams went to the right and grabbed the leading two spots, which they maintained on the run back to the finish.
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| Photo: Frank Quealey/18 Foot Skiff League |
It was an impressive day’s sailing by the Kiwis, who proved far too good for their Australian opponents.
Racing continues on Saturday with Race 8 and concludes on Sunday afternoon when the blue ribbon will be presented to the championship winner after Race 9.
Frank Quealey
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