Crown Series Bellerive Regatta Twilight Celebrity Challenge

12:00 AM Sat 21 Feb 2009 GMT

'Wired with Tasmanian opposition leader Will Hodgman on board.' Peter Campbell &copy

Jock Campbell, the Mayor of the City Clarence, produced some tactical skills honed as a one-time national sailing champion to help Hughie Lewis and the crew of Euro Central narrowly win the Farr 40 Celebrity Challenge in last evening's Crown Series Bellerive Regatta Twilight Race.

A fleet of 90 boats, including visitors from northern Tasmania, Queensland and Victoria, contested the shortened non-spinnaker race, with the increasing rain and decreasing breeze failing to dampen the enthusiasm of some 550 sailors on the water and back at Bellerive Yacht Club.

The Twilight race was a highly successful lead-in to the full-on racing in keelboats, dinghies, skiffs and catamarans on Saturday and Sunday.

Jock Campbell, a one-time Australian champion in the Rainbow class and later a leading sailor in Diamonds and other classes, was one of three government leaders invited to sail aboard the one-design Farr 40 class in the Celebrity Challenge within the Division 1 fleet.

Euro Central won the boat-for-boat challenge by a mere three seconds from Stephen Boyes' Wired, with Opposition Leader Will Hodgman on board, with a further 44 seconds to Craig Clifford's POW, with Deputy Premier Lara Giddings in the crew.

'Jock has a vast knowledge of racing on the river and while we had our regular tactician on board, he made a valuable input to our race tactics,' Euro Central's owner/skipper Hughie Lewis said after the race.

'I've never been sailing before.and I loved it,' said Lara Giddings as a rather bedraggled crew came ashore. 'They had me sitting on the rail, daggling my legs over the water, looking down at the keel.it was really exciting.'

Will Hodgman agreed.'it was a great sail.I'm hooked on yacht racing', adding that the pre-start manoeuvres between the three Farr 40s had been rather awesome. 'But Stephen Boyes is great helmsman.always cool, no matter what the situation,' he added.

Gary Smith and Geoff White's Bakewell-White 45 Marineline had a treble success in Division 1, take line honours and first place on Performance handicaps and first place on IRC corrected time.

Tony Lyall in his resurrected Elliott 12 Valheru chased Marineline around the course, placing third in PHS and second in IRC. Steve Keal's Cyclone placed second on PHS, while in IRC Harold Clark's Farr 1104 Invincible took third place.

Other winners in the Twilight opener to the Crown Series Bellerive Regatta was Andrew Sutherland's Silver Mist (Division 2), Ian Smith's Innovator (Division3), Ron Bugg's Buggbear (9 Metre), Walter Knoop's Silicon Ship (Half Ton), Ian Brett's Alumination (Cruising Red) and Brian Bick's Cireldo (Cruising Green).

Racing for the keelboat divisions will start at 11 am on Saturday and 10am on Sunday, with the dinghy, skiff and catamaran divisions racing from 10am on both

by Peter Campbell

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