It was a great weekend for yacht racing, with Ray Roberts’ Team Hollywood claiming line honours during the Festival of Sails’ Geelong Passage Race.
A rare spinnaker start and finish came down to the wire on 24 January, with Team Hollywood recording a close line honours finish with the two other 40-foot racers, PP1 and Veloce 4.
Roberts said there was a good battle during the passage race, and he enjoyed close racing as it kept the crew on their toes.
“The weather was fabulous as we had a beautiful sunny day, with a good breeze. We couldn’t ask for anything more, so we were really happy,” he said.
More than 200 yachts competed in the 183rd running of the historic race that started at Melbourne’s Royal Yacht Club of Victoria before racing down the bay to the Royal Geelong Yacht Club.
The STS Young Endeavour served as the start boat for the passage race, with Bruce McCracken’s IKON winning Passage Series Racing 1 in all three divisions, Australian Measurement System (AMS), Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) and International Rating Certificate (IRC) but was pipped for the overall title.
“It was a lovely day. I was expecting to be out there like everyone else for hours, but the wind was very good,” McCracken said.
“We made our sail changes when we needed to make changes … and it was quite a surprise when we saw the results, so we are all extremely pleased.”
Nigel Jones and Cameron Mackenzie’s boat Ginan won the Lou Abrahams Trophy for the overall IRC win of four hours, 45 minutes and 16 seconds during the Passage Series division 2, beating IKON in division 1 by close to 30 seconds (4:45:59) on corrected time.
“Luckily, the wind held in all day as well, so it was just a glorious day out on the water, and pretty well we got it right, so it’s a credit to the whole team, we sailed a brilliant race,” Jones said.
“It was a great team effort from all our team. We have been sailing for years as mates, and it was just fabulous, really nice to get the result,” Mackenzie said.
