Calm Makes Winning Australian Debut in Melbourne to Stanley Race

• NEWS
• 02 Nov, 2009 03:55:00 PM

Calm Makes Winning Australian Debut in Melbourne to Stanley Race

The former champion Northern Hemisphere TP52 Calm made a winning offshore racing debut in Australian waters at the weekend when she took line and IRC honours in the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s annual race across Bass Strait from Melbourne to Stanley.

The former champion Northern Hemisphere TP52 Calm made a winning offshore racing debut in Australian waters at the weekend when she took line and IRC honours in the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s annual race across Bass Strait from Melbourne to Stanley.

In a most impressive performance,  this US-built,  ‘gen 4’ version of the widely successful TP52 class, sailed the 152 nautical miles through fog and calm to a hard on the nose 18-20 knots southerly breeze.

The 35 boat fleet, including at least six using the 52 nautical mile race as a qualifier for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race,  started from Queenscliff, just inside Port Phillip, at 4.30am on Saturday to give the boats slack water to sail through the narrow Rip into Bass Strait.

Calm led the fleet into Stanley, the historic seaport on the north-west coast of Tasmania, at 2.18am Sunday after battling freshening headwinds all the way.

Calm is owned by a syndicate of three including John Williams, Graeme Ainley and Jason Van Der Slot, from Melbourne’s Sandringham Yacht Club.  The boat replaces Williams and Ainley’s former ocean racer, Georgia, which sank after losing its rudder stock on the first night at sea in last year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart.

On IRC corrected times, Calm won the Stanley race was the 50-footer Goldfinger which came charging across the line under main and genoa staysail in standing place. It was a “blinder” for Goldfinger,  the former Ichi Ban now owned by Peter Blake.

Third place on IRC corrected time went to the DK46 Extasea while her sistership, Dekadence had to be content with a 14th.  However, this was the first race for Dekadence’s new owner, Tasmanian David Creece and his crew from Hobart.  Dekadence will race for Tasmania in the Rolex Sydney Hobart.

Another Tasmanian entrant for the Sydney Hobart, David Stephenson’s Farr 39 Matangi from Launceson, also contested the Melbourne to Stanley race as a qualifier, finishing an impressive sixth on IRC and third under PHS handicaps. - By Peter Campbell