Tuesday 23 February 2010

Farr 40: Estate Master Wins the 2010 Farr 40 Sprint Series Regatta


F40's 2010 Sprint Series. Image copyright Sam Crichton.

by Sam Crichton

After two days of racing on Sydney Harbour Lisa and Martin Hill’s Estate Master have won their second Farr 40 regatta in a row, taking out the 2010 Farr 40 Sprint Series which was hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.

Hill commented “It may have looked easy from the results but we didn’t have it all our way”, he continued, ”we had to work hard and the team that has been put together is coming together well.”

Estate Master finished day one of racing with a picket fence on their score card winning all four races. The Farr 40’s joined the mêlée of boats racing on Sydney Harbour on a Saturday making for challenging racing as their threaded their way across the harbour on the short sprint style windward leeward race course set by PRO Denis Thomson.


2010 F40 Sprint Series. Image copyright Sam Crichton.

Rejoining the Farr 40 class was New Zealander Brett Neill’s White Cloud team sailing on Orion. Their return from a 12 month hiatus is in preparation for the upcoming Farr 40 Australian Championship being held March 12-14.

Teams have used this weekends racing in preparation for the 2010 Farr 40 Australian Championship which will be hosted by Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. As the fleet converged on the marks each crew was put through their paces and given plenty of opportunities to practice crew manoeuvres in the very close racing enjoyed by all.


F40 Sprint Series 2010. Image copyright Sam Crichton.

Day two of racing was a little less congested on the harbour and the Farr 40 fleet waited for the Royal Australian Naval Sailing Association regatta to get under way before wrapping up the eight race Sprint Series with the final four races. Estate Master kicked off the day with another first place and scored their only blemish on a near perfect score card of a second place in race seven of the series.

“We are looking forward to racing in a few weeks time at the Nationals, we’ve used this weekend and will also use Audi regatta for our Nationals preparation”, remarked Easy Tiger II owner Chris Way as he accepted his third place trophy.


F40 Sprint Series 2010 winner Estate Master. Image copyright Sam Crichton.

The next event in the 2009-2010 Australian Farr 40 Circuit will be the Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta, being hosted by Middle Harbour Yacht Club on March 6 & 7, which will be used as the 2010 Farr 40 Australian Championship warm up.

2010 Sprint Series Final Results:

Place Boat Name Skipper Yacht Club Points
1 Estate Master Lisa & Martin Hill MHYC 9.0
2 OrionBrett Neill RNZYS 20.0
3 Easy Tiger II Chris Way RPAYC 21.0
4 Edake Jeff Carter MHYC 29.0

Farr 40

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