At the age of 15, Edmund Hargreaves is the ‘senior’ sailor in the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania Dinghy Group’s strong Sabot fleet. Today he showed that experience and skill can combine for victory when he won the Sabot class at the RYCT’s annual spring regatta, The Showdown.
Sailing against a talented fleet of 21 boats from southern and northern Tasmanian clubs, he maintained his consistency with a 1-2-4 scorecard today to win what was also the final selection series for the Tasmanian team to contest the Sabot nationals at Southport, Queensland, in January.
Helming Starter Kit, Hargreaves finished with a net 15 points, holding out a late challenge from Thomas Cooper in Snap.E.Tom, from the Port Dalrymple Yacht Club at Beauty Point on the Tamar River. Cooper won the last two of eight heats to finish on 19 points while third went Gabriel Morrison, sailing Holy Mackrel, from Kingston Beach Sailing Club, on 20 points.
The tiny crew of 2 Hot to Touch, nine-year-old Ruby and seven-year-old Max Edmunds, from Port Dalrymple Sailing Club, won the Sabot Junior (two-up) class with six wins from eight races. They come from a prominent Tamar River sailing family and obviously have inherited the talent on the water, also winning the mixed division series based on yardstick handicaps.
Sandy Bay Sailing Club Commodore Jill Abeles described racing in the International Cadet dinghy class at The Showdown as “the closest fleet racing we have seen in some time”.
The club is gearing up to host the International Cadet national and world championships next season as well as the Optimist nationals.
One one point separated first and second, with Sirocco, sailed by Charlie Connor and Ethan Gailbraith, winning the final two heats to finish on 11 points and edge out Samantha Bailey and Hannah Chadwick in Impulse who had a win and two thirds today to have a net 12 points.
Third place went to the improving Sam Tiedemann and Chloe Abel, sailing Phoenix, on 25 points after finishing second in the last race.
Two girls from the RYCT Dinghy Group who represented Australia at the International Laser 4.7 world championships in San Francisco in August, Sophie Chesterman and Anna Vaughan, fought out today’s final three heats at The Showdown.
Sophie, sailing Export Roo, scored two wins and a second today, Anna, steering Topaz, had a first and two seconds. Anna’s father Michael Vaughan had a good day, too, finishing second overall in the bigger rig, Laser Radial class. Third overall in the Laser 4.7 class went to Jatz Cracker (Jack Work).
Another Sandy Bay Sailing Club entrant, Hugo Hamilton, sailed Downunder to convincing win in the Optimist single-handed class, winning seven of the eight races. He finished with the minimum seven points to beat Hugh Hickling (Rwetheryet) on 14 points and Bombora (Jasmine Gailbraith) on 19 points. Jasmine was the only other race winner in the Optimists at the regatta.
An up-and-coming young team in Matt Schofield and Sam Asky-Doran won the International Mirror class on a countback from Kamikaze II (Mark Barrington and Colette Usher). Both finished on 13 points but Schofield had the most first places, winning the final race.
Only one point further back was Carpe Diem, sailed by Jenny Graney and Maddie Howell.
Peter Campbell
6 November 2011