Shagabull’s fast finish to claim King George Sound honours

Division 1 skippers Harold Keay in his Bull design 9000, Shagabull, and Geoff Oliver in his Bull design 7000, Excitabull, match raced in a flying start King George Sound event last Saturday.

The steady southerly was around the 12 knot mark and the odd gust up to 15 knots meant quick times around the marks.

Oliver surprised when he dashed to the lead with Excitabull leaving Shagabull struggling in the early stages.

Eventually Keay began closing the margin and on entering the harbour pit in a tack that gave him a fantastic lift while Oliver tacked away and fell in a hole and lost valuable time as Keay scooted to the finish line to record a good win over a valiant Oliver who would have been pleased with his boat's performance.

Division 2 also competed in a King George Sound event and Neil Worrell with a skeleton crew opted to go JAM (jib and main) which gave him a decent handicap of which the other two skippers were aware.

Stephen Lee was quickly in the lead with his speedy Flasheart followed by Stephen Brown in Mary Maitland and Worrell in Zuri was hanging on in third place throughout.

On entering the harbour for the final leg Brown put in a port tack which pushed him to the lead as Lee had tacked to starboard and lost ground.

Brown with a bigger headsail than Lee pulled away and finished ahead of Lee, however, the wily Worrell had done enough to snatch victory on corrected time.

Brown was second and fastest and Lee took third place in an interesting competition.

Flying Fifteens competed in a harbour course flying start and Simon Lucas had FForever Young zipping in the brisk breeze to establish a handy lead very early.

Aileen Lucas was looking good in Crazy from the start while Wayne North threw caution to the wind and hoisted a spinnaker which refused to set and Frequent Flyer lost valuable time. There wasn’t much between the Lucases until a split spinnaker on Crazy ended their chances of a win.

FForever Young went on to win and to also record fastest time in a mighty performance.

Crazy was second and Frequent Flyer took third place.