Masterful display from Cridge on Noel Robins nets division 3 victory
Division 3 skipper Rob Cridge leaves his wheelchair on the pontoon and becomes the master on the water each Saturday afternoon as he prepares to match race with Mark Paynter.
Last Saturday was no different and in extremely windy conditions, with a steady easterly around 21 knots, he led Paynter from go to whoa over a harbour course to wrap up another victory in his yacht Noel Robins.
Paynter in Serenita, a much smaller boat, keeps improving his time but can’t land the big one yet.
Cridge, after a close start, once again proved too quick for Paynter and in no time at all had established a huge lead which he never surrendered.
Paynter, with an all-female crew, is coming to terms with the all-powerful performance of Cridge and would dearly love to be a little bit closer at the end.
Division 2 sailed a King George Sound event and three yachts faced the starter, with Stephen Brown in Mary Maitland getting away very smartly but with two short in his crew, and a 13-year-old doing all the hard yakka, found it tough going.
Stephen Lee had Flasheart moving to the front with Neil Worrell in Zuri right on his transom and looking good. After a couple of legs in the sound Lee was still ahead when they entered the harbour but Worrell had closed the gap.
The three skippers had agreed to go JAM (jib and main) and that played into Worrell’s hands as he went on to take the race easily by more than five minutes on corrected time.
Flasheart was second and fastest with Brown not far off in third place.
There was the usual match race between Harold Keay in Shagabull and Murray Deere in Wild One over a King George Sound course in division 1.
Keay was the early leader and was well ahead as they entered the harbour after sailing around Gull Rock. Keay was so far in front that Wild One retired from the race handing an easy victory to Shagabull.
In Flying Fifteens a match race developed between husband and wife, Simon Lucas in FForever Young and Aileen Lucas in Crazy.
It was close for the first half of the race with FForever Young just seconds ahead.
Suddenly Crazy was in the lead and the pressure was on as FForever Young did everything to close the gap but Crazy’s skipper held her nerve and went on to snatch the race by 20 seconds.
Vipers had a fleet of four competing over a harbour course and all eyes were on Murray Howson’s Chinese Moccasin and Michael Cameron’s Bite Me.
The skippers of Fang and Alice were mere spectators as the arch rivals battled it out way ahead of them. Howson held a narrow lead throughout and went on to a handsome win over Cameron in a mighty duel. Fang was well back in third and Alice never recovered from a horrible capsize.
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