Yachting and the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club 1988 | Page 202

Carl Halvorsen ' s Skagerak leading In a heal for the

5.5 metre class world cham · pionship in January 1986 . championships upunlil the year 1981 . Australia won no few than eighl times . Tltose winners are :

Date Wi . nn !! r Venue

The Australian championships carry • $ irnilnr story . When the class was first introduced ii was • case of beating A . S . ( Jock ) Siurrockof Melbourne who won every Australian championship from 1955 until 1960 . We were still not up to world smndard however , and ' Jock ' finished third to Sweden and Great Britain in the Olympic Games of 1956 . Gordon lngategotupin 1961 winningtheAuslnlliantitleon lhe Pinwmer . Since then every Australian championship has been won by an RPAYCmember with the excep1ion of 1962 , 1969 and 1970 . which have been won by Gordon lngate for the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron . Listed amongst our winners an : Norman Boo1h . Carl Halvorsen , Sir William Nonham , A . B . ( Tony ) Carr , David Forbes , F . H . ( Frnnk ) Tolhurst , W . R . ( Russel ) Slade , Harold Vaughan and C . Ryan .

EX-TE NSION WINS THE GREAT

RACE

By Wal Wardle , crew of Ex-tension .

With a new fonnat for the stan , Sovereign . the world ' s newest and longest maxi . and a number of other brand new yachts out to prove themselves . the

I 986 Sydney Hoban Race was high in in1eresL

Yachting writers f1lvoured yacbLSsuch as Another CorJcubine , Madeline '. 1 Daushter , Great E ; rpectation . t and Indian Pt1cific V . Ex · te11sio11 was men · 1ioned as a yacht 1hot hadn ' t been given her ABS

Ccnificate but which . as • sistership to Indian Pacific V , could do well . The ABS Ccnifica1c did arrive , somewhat belatedly , to allow 1he Franklin ( NZ ) -buih Davidson 36 10 join the siun . RPAYC member Tony Dunn had commissioned local shipwright Ian Perdriau to supcmse a campaign to prepare the yacht and crew for the Hobart Race . As weU as Ex-Tt1rsion . other RPA YC yachts

going south were Sun . J " et ! ker . Kb1gs CtolJ , Pull .' r

Bear . and Evelyn .

The two-line start seemed to work well although some yachts from 1hc second line ; uch as Kings Cross . Ex-tension and Indian Pacific V soon found tha1 they had caugh1 some of the bigger but slower yachts from the firs ! line . However . this was better 1hnn having ten or more maxi yachts in1ermingling wi1h and · gassing ' 1hc whole fleeL

After the usual tension or the harbour pa .<; Sage it was a great relief 10 clear the sea buoy off the Heads and set the spinnaker to the brisk nor ' caster . Ian Perdriau . who bad earned the nickname ' The Prefec1 ', had ro go aloft that afternoon 10 replace a failed shackle on the spinnnker halyard dcflec1 ion block . He also retensioned the jumper stays which had been pulled to one side . With Ian and the ki1c both aloft . and surfing at 12 plus knots . the only broach of the race 1ook place . ' The Prefect ' was not amused I

Wind condltions for a number of days before Christmas bad been unsettled and variable in s1reng1h and direction . Because of this it hnd been decided to sail lhc rhumb line as cl0 $ C as practical to gain 1he best advantage of wind shills to the east or west of that line .

Overnight the wind gradually shifted from the nonh-easl to the south . As Ex · te11slo11 closed the south coast of NSW the next day ( Saturday ) it swung 10 • sou ' wester on which we tacked to gieat advantage . This set the paucm for E . x-rtnsion ' s race . Dusk on 1his second day saw Ex · rension depan the main-

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