Sunday 24 January 2010

Record cruising fleet adds plenty of weight to Audi Victoria Week




Rouseabout 3 cruising around. Image copyright Andrea Francolini/Audi.

by Lisa Ratcliff

The record cruising fleet contesting Audi Victoria Week added plenty of colour and numbers to today’s starting list of 335 for the 34.3 nautical mile Passage Race from Williamstown to Geelong.

Christopher Gendala’s Stampede won the Sunsail Cruising Spinnaker division 1 winner and Bruce Dobbie’s Forzado claimed division 2 honours.

Dobbie’s crew are all members of Sandringham Yacht Club and regular competitors in the club’s sailing and cruising activities, as well as the Club Marine Series on Port Phillip.

Competing at Audi Victoria Week for the sixth time, Dobbie has commenced the defence of his 2009 Audi Victoria Week divisional win in good shape. He won his division last year by the narrowest of margins on a countback from another Sandringham boat, Hush.

Geoff Adams’ Unami proved the best boat of the day in division 3 while Paul Commins’ Dionysos was declared the Coca Cola Cruising Non Spinnaker Series winner.

“It was a great sail down, lots of fun out there. We had a fair bit of wind and it turned a little bit grey in the middle but it was just fantastic. We are over the moon with the win,” said Commins, a first time competitor at Audi Victoria Week.

In the Parks Victoria Classic Yacht Series, which commenced today with the Passage Race, joint owners of the 1970 launched SS design Martini, Michael Williams and Geoff Clark, scored the divisional win. Martini is a timber boat constructed mainly of mahogany and is one of the 11 strong division made up of boats that were built for racing in an earlier era.

Audi Victoria Week

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