Geographe Bay Race Week - Last chance to enter

4:59 AM Thu 4 Feb 2010 GMT

Two top yachtsmen from New Zealand will ramp up the standard of ocean racing in Western Australia when the State's best yachts contest the Geographe Bay Race Week starting in Busselton on 20th February.

Kiwi design consultant and sailmaker, Rod Keenan, will be returning to Perth to continue his partnership with Frank Saraceni aboard Al Fresco. The all carbon Bakewell-White flyer won line honours in last year's Geraldton Ocean Classic and Saraceni attributed the boat's victory to Keenan's extraordinary downwind sailing skill. The little boat logged a staggering 28.2 knots in one frantic burst in that race.

Butch Williamson and Dave Walling will sail the current Geographe Bay titleholder The Next Factor, with sailmaker Paul Eldrid as principal helmsman, again joined by New Zealander Simon Minoprio. Minoprio, the brother of world match racing champion Adam, was another who flew to Perth for the Geraldton race last year.

From Sydney, expatriate West Australian Cameron Percival returns to his old stamping ground to sail on the Farr 47 Sled, skippered by Tony Mitchell. Percival has been an integral part of Alan Brierty's team on Limit, the only WA yacht campaigning regularly on the east coast.

Entries in the IRC fleets are building quickly and look set to exceed last year's numbers, a ringing endorsement of the organisers' strategy of splitting them into three homogenous fleets.

Great interest surrounds the return of John Moore's Charlotte to ocean racing. Travelling at speed, Charlotte struck an uncharted lump in Cockburn Sound soon after her launching and badly damaged her keel. Repairs to the all-carbon hull were both time consuming and expensive, requiring the hull to be transported back to New South Wales for reconstruction. Race Week will be Charlotte's first outing since her repairs.

Phil Edman will be racing Prime Minister at Race Week for the first time. The well credentialed Farr 40 was optimized for IRC racing by her previous owner and should be competitive. Prime Minister will be pitted against other similar sized craft like Ray Lynch's Southern Star, a much later 40 footer from the drawing board of world renowned naval architect Bruce Farr.

In the shallow waters of Geographe Bay, deep draft yachts such as Sled (which draws more than 3 metres), Charlotte and Knee Deep need to be ever vigilant with their navigation.

For the first time, a feeder race has been scheduled to take the fleet from Fremantle to Busselton on 13th February, a week before the regatta begins.

Registrations submitted after the 5th February will incur a late fee. So jump online www.gbyc.com.au and register now!

by Bernie Kaaks

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