Festival of Sails Great Whitsunday Fun Race
'Skipper Peter Millar and his sailing master Dave Chittlebourough lived up to their expectations when they and crew combined to produce unmatched speed completing the 15 nautical mile race with an impressive 15.20knot average'
Ian Grant
Peter Millar convincingly claimed his fourth consecutive Festival of Sails Great Whitsunday Fun Race line honours trophy when he steered the catamaran Cynophobe to a record smashing win on Pioneer Bay.
Skipper Peter Millar and his sailing master Dave Chittlebourough lived up to their expectations when they and crew combined to produce unmatched speed completing the 15 nautical mile race with an impressive 15.20knot average.
This was a remarkable performance considering the Tony Grainger designed and Dave Chittleborough built Cynophobe was only launched three weeks ago.
However the speed sailing catamaran powered with ideal 15-20 knot Trade Winds and still yet to reach her ultimate potential was clearly the star performer in their 1 minute 45 second victory over the trimarans Sirocco (Shane Beyer) with another 10 seconds to Wild Thing (Keith Roberts).
The Cynophobe crew who are progressively adapting to a new learning curve after winning the previous three line honours titles with Spud Gun clearly showed that the new record will be under threat when they defend the title in 2009.
Records are only made to be broken and this power sailing catamaran showed the potential to take the race into a new time zone when she saluted the finish line flying a hull in a flurry of power sailing spray.
Local Whitsunday Sailing Club skipper Shannon Hart also experienced some power sailing spray over the deck of Mustard Cutter when he steered the Thompson Sports boat to claim the fastest monohull prize ahead of the Mooloolaba sloop Magani (Bink Manson) and Re-Ignition (Charles Wallis).
Hart sailed a tactical smart race leaving little to chance while the Re-ignition crew added unnecessary extra time into their race when they rounded an incorrect mark in the Molle Channel.
The error proved to be costly when Mustard Cutter claimed a deserved 8 minute 15 second win over Magani with another 19 seconds to Re-Ignition.
by Ian Grant 
