Maria Island Update 6 - 1730
Dr Who is leading the Maria Race and at the 4th sked was south of the Hippolyte’s. Creative inTension is in 2nd
Continue Reading Add comment November 25th, 2006
Maria Island Update 5 - 1450
Sked 3 - 1150 - courtesy of RYCT Race Centre
Continue Reading Add comment November 25th, 2006
Maria Island Race Update 4 - 0715
Creative inTension have taken the lead and are currently half a nautical mile in front of Dr Who. Fruit is currently third followed by Archie and Pisces approx 7 nm behind the leaders. Quetzalcoatl has retired.
The leading boats are just off the northern end of Maria Island.
6 comments November 25th, 2006
Maria Island Race - Update
Dr Who has led the fleet into the mercury passage but now only has a lead of about 1nm over Creative inTension
Continue Reading 1 comment November 24th, 2006
Maria Island Race Update
At 7pm the 59th Maria Island Race got underway with a fleet of 7 yachts starting the race. Dr Who, Creative inTension, Fruit, Wild West, Quetzalcoatl, Archie and Pisces.
Continue Reading Add comment November 24th, 2006
Quality Fleet for Maria Island Race
A quality fleet of 7 has so far entered for the 2006 Maria Island race including Dr Who and Archie the two boats that suffered serious damage in last Saturdays BYC pennant race.
Continue Reading Add comment November 22nd, 2006
A First for Maria Island Race
In what will be a first in the Maria Island race the crew of Creative inTension will endeavour to complete regular updates on saileski.com in an attempt to keep family members, the general yachting fraternity, media and the public up to date on the progress of the yachts in the race and the prevailing conditions.
The Maria Island Race is a 180nm race up the east coast of Tasmania and Tasmania’s only qualifying race for the Sydney to Hobart and Melbourne to Hobart yacht races. It was first run in 1947 and is in its 59th year. The race starts this Friday the 24th November at 7pm of Castray Esplanade on Hobart’s waterfront and from there the fleet will take the 12nm trip south out of the River Derwent and into Storm Bay on the way to the infamous and beautiful Cape Raoul and Tasman island on the tip of the Tasman Peninsula. The fleet will then head almost true north on their way up Tasmania’s East Coast before rounding Maria Island for the return trip back to the finish line off Castray Esplanade. Tasmania skippered by Bob Clifford holds the record completeing the course in 19hours and 50minutes in 1994.
This years fleet will in include Tasmanian entrants for the Sydney to Hobart Creative inTension and Mark Ballard’s Fruit.
Team Creative inTension will be hoping to update the saileski website at least every three hours including the updated sked positions(a pre determined radio contact time with the organising committee to report a yachts position).
Along with the written updates team Creative inTension will also be uploading regular photo’s from on the boat including pictures from the start. Also people will be able to contact Creative inTension via email (teamcreativeintension@hotmail.com) to pass messages of support onto the crew. All this is in preparation for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race when the crew hope to have the same system running.
Add comment November 20th, 2006
Two Races One Central Result
Bellerive Yacht Club hosted this weekends Pennant Day and for the first time this season the fleet raced on the compact windward leeward courses with a mid river start. A Warm morning left many with the feeling that a sea breeze would result and by the time the gun went for race one there was a light 5 to 10 knot see breeze. Wired and War Games had a battle in the middle of the line while the bulk of the fleet fought it out for honours at the boat end. Unfortunately for Planet X they where the big looser being forced above the start boat and having to turn around in order to start correctly. The Archibald 35 recently named Archie and Dr Who tacked away to the west early with a large majority of the fleet soon to follow. War Games and Wired went to the west and it look to have paid off when they finally came back to the fleet holding a good advantage of Euro Central, Fruit and Dr Who. Unfortunately this lead proved to be costly as both crews got the course wrong and sailed past the top mark losing precious time handing the lead to Euro Central.
By the time Euro Central rounded the bottom mark the wind was gusting up to 15knots and increasing. Wired rounded the mark second ahead of Fruit, Dr Who and War Games. The upwind leg was much of the same with Euro Central holding her lead over the pack and rounding comfortably ahead. Wired remained second with Dr Who now third with War Games right behind her. The Battle for third hotted up shortly after the mark when War Games attempted to go above Dr Who to combat this Dr Who attempted to gain height to match them lost control and went into a wild round up crossing into the path of War Games. Wayne Banks-Smith quickly reacted and threw his boat into a round up to avoid “the doctor”, the two ended up side by side without control only a metre apart. Both crews were able to get their respective yachts back on track undamaged. Meanwhile Euro Central and Wired were rounding the bottom mark with War Games finally able to roll over the top of Dr Who to round third.
Euro Central held onto their lead to take out race one ahead of Wired, War Games and Dr Who. Further back in the fleet Archie was having the best race of it’s short time on the river battling out with Intrigue and the two Mumm 36’s as a result of this Archie took out the overall honours on performance handicap from Blue Chip and Fruit. Invincible took out the coveted IRC prize from Fruit and Intrigue.
Race two started with drama when Dr Who and Archie were involved in a collision shortly after the start forcing both yachts to retire with serious damage. Euro Central once again took out line honours from Wired and War Games with Fruit fourth. Intrigue took out the IRC honours from Fruit and Euro Central. Euro Central capped off a fantastic day on the water with 1st in the Performance handicap for race two from Fruit and Intrigue.
Add comment November 19th, 2006
SailEski Website cranks up
In September http://www.saileski.com/ site scored 16,000 hits for the month which impressed all of us involved with the campaign and especially our sponsor Creative inTension. October saw a doubling of hits with 34,000 hits! We are now only two weeks into November and we are already at 34,000 hits. Will we get to 100,000 hits by this years Sydney Hobart Yacht Race?
For those regular visitors that are familiar with the site you may have noticed a new album appearing in the Gallery section of the site. Jane Austin kindly supplied us with all of the photos from last weekends DSS Long Race as a suppliment to those that we regularly take from the boat. Did you know you can view the gallery as a slideshow? Click on the link in the top right next time you view an album.
Finally look out for our new competition to guess the time it will take us to complete the Sydney-Hobart race this year and win some great prizes. Stay connected as this will be launched later this week.
1 comment November 13th, 2006
Fully Wired Up for Outright Dominance
A light south-wester greeted the strong fleet on Saturday morning for the DSS long distance race. The race committee decided on a course from Castray, to Blackmans Bay, to Droughty Point, back to Blackmans Bay and then Droughty point before heading to the finish line off Castray Esplanade.
The conditions suited the Farr 40’s perfectly with Wired, War Games and Euro Central getting an early break on the field. Creative inTension, ABN Amro Morgans, Dr Who and OneSteel were is the chasing group. The wind stayed between 5 and 12knots for most of the first leg making it clear that the boats that got off the line well held good position and where able to make a break on the rest of the fleet. One boat to suffer badly from the start was Sydney to Hobart entrant Fruit skippered by Mark Ballard who was forced to sail low from the start to gain some clear air.
Skippers and trimmers had to be alert all the time in the shifting light wind as a wrong move could mean “parking the Boat” and losing ground on the front runners. Wired managed to get a mini break on the other two Farr 40’s and by the first turning mark had a commanding lead of over 1minute. Euro Central was second ahead of War games who had to deal with a wine glass in the spinnaker before being able to make their way to the 2nd mark. The Farr 40’s where followed by Dr Who, ABN Amro Morgans and Creative inTension.
Once again the breeze went “up in the air” briefly in the middle of the river and Dr Who, Creative inTension and ABN Amro Morgans all took different approaches to the next mark. Meanwhile Wired had extended her lead over the fleet to almost 5 minutes and was heading back towards Blackmans Bay full of confidence. The order of the top three remained the same but further back ABN Amro Morgans had overtaken Dr Who and was also heading back to Blackmans Bay.
Wired had once again extended her lead after the Blackmans Bay mark to be leading by almost 9minutes over Euro Central and war games with another large gap back to ABN Amro and Dr Who. Creative inTension had been joined by Liberty Express and OneSteel on the leg back to Blackmans Bay which made for some good racing mid fleet. By the time the fleet where heading back to Droughty point before heading home the Sea Breeze had began to build. Wired was going to win only a disaster would take victory away from them it was just a matter of how much they would win by and who would be second.
Wired turned for home well in front ahead of War Games and Euro Central. Dr Who had arrested the advantage from ABN Amro Morgans again and further back OneSteel had the jump on Creative inTension and Liberty Express who where within a boat length of each other at the mark.
Steven Boyes and his crew went on to take line honours in a time of 4hours 12minuts and 20 seconds a massive 6minuts and 48 seconds ahead of War Games with Euro Central a further 1minute 13back. Dr Who held off ABN Amro Morgans whilst OneSteel held a clear 6minute advantage over Liberty Express who crossed only boat lengths ahead of Creative inTension.
1 comment November 12th, 2006
