Three Tasmanian yachts to contest Melbourne to Stanley Yacht Race

10:18 AM Tue 27 Oct 2009 GMT

'Calm - Melbourne to Stanley race favourite' John Curnow

Three Tasmanian yachts are contesting the annual Melbourne to Stanley Yacht Race, the tough 152 nautical mile race across Bass Strait, to be sailed this coming weekend.

The fleet will start from Queenscliff, just inside The Rip at Port Phillip at 4.30am on Saturday, enabling the yachts to sail into Bass Strait at slack tide.

Given favourable winds, the leaders are likely to be sight of the granite outcrop called The Nut by early evening with the slower boats finishing through Saturday night and Sunday morning.

The race has attracted a fleet of 32 ocean racing yachts as it is a qualifier for the major ocean races to Tasmania between Christmas and New Year - the Sydney to Hobart, Melbourne to Hobart (West Coast and East Coast) and the Melbourne to Launceston races.

The three Tasmanian entrants are Bellerive Yacht Club member David Creece's newly acquired DK46 Dekadence, David Stephenson's Farr 38 Matangi from the Tamar Yacht Club and Andre Jenkins' modified Farr 37 Hummingbird.

Dekadence and Matangi are both entrants for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, with the race across Bass Strait being part of the yacht's delivery voyage to its new club in Hobart.

Dekadence, previously owned in Melbourne, and sistership Extasea from the Royal Geelong Yacht Club are among the favourites for handicap success in the race to Stanley, along with Rob Hanna's Cookson 50 Shogun, also from
Geelong and Bruce Taylor's IRC 40 Chutzpah from the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria. Chutzpah won both the IRC and AMS handicap categories in last year's race.

Line honours favourite is Calm, a generation three-plus Farr-designed TP52 owned by Sandringham Yacht Club members John Williams and Graeme Ainley whose previous yacht Georgia sank off the New South Wales coast on the first night of the 2008 Sydney Hobart.

This will be the first long ocean race in Australian waters for Calm which raced successfully in the UK and the Mediterrannean before being bought by Williams and Ainley. She is among at least six boats in the Melbourne to
Stanley Race already entered for this year's Sydney Hobart while most of the others will race from Melbourne to Hobart or Melbourne to Launceston.

The elapsed time record for the 152 nautical mile race across Bass Strait to Stanley stands at a remarkable 14 hours 36 minutes and 15 seconds, set by Kontrol in the 2002 race.

However, weather forecasts indicate light to moderate breezes in Bass Strait on Saturday and early Sunday, this precluding much chance of a race record.

'Hummingbird' in what looks to be her home waters on the Derwent - John Curnow

by Peter Campbell

Click on thumbnails to enlarge and find more photos:

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Three Tasmanian yachts to contest Melbourne to Stanley Yacht Race

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