The best of 74 Islands Distillery Airlie Beach Race Week was held on this, the final day, when Principal Race Officer Kevin Wilson set the fleet a Round the Bay Race around Pioneer Bay – it's always impressive to witness a sea of colour shoreside and on the water as the fleet takes to the water in the scenic Whitsundays – and today was no different.
Another beautiful day, weatherwise, as a south-easterly sea breeze of 18-24 knots smiled down on those racing and managing the Whitsunday Sailing Club (WSC) annual regatta.
IRC Rating Passage
Ray 'Hollywood' Roberts (NSW) won every race with his Botin 40, Team Hollywood. He won every race here in 2023 and won all but two last year when he scored a pair of third places. Hollywood takes no prisoners. His boat and crew are always well-prepared, be it in Australia or overseas.
Second place went to David Currie's modified Farr 40, Ponyo, with third place going to Annika and Ian Thomson's Ocean Crusaders J-Bird, skippered by Annika.
Sports Boats & Trailable Yachts
NSW's Sandor Tornai (Skeeter) cleaned up in Division 1, winning every race. He won line honours in all but one race too. His nearest rivals were Jesse Frisch's Kiss, a local boat from WSC and Don't Panic! (Ken Stevenson/David Davenport, Vic), which were six and eight points behind respectively.
"This is much better than last year when we capsized and I ended up in the water for too long and ended up with pneumonia," Tornai said.
"All except one are my crew from last year. Instead of Cub (Phi Barnett), we have his son Daniel. I'm the geriatric on the boat," a laughing Tornai said.
Of his result at Airlie Beach, Tornai said, "It's the best I've ever done at a regatta. I've never won every race. I've not often won more than one, even. Kiss pushed us this year. Between this boat and the Mumm 30 I had, I think we've done Airlie since 2012 except for the COVID year.
"Preparation was the key to our success. We changed the rig a bit and practiced on Saturday mornings. The boys sponged the bottom of the boat each day - they are pretty committed. We just weren't ready last year."
Division 2 and the Berndt's, Barry and son Jamie, capitalised on their race win yesterday to come back with a second victory today and claim the overall win from yesterday's leader, Black Betty (Malcolm Dean, NSW) and Mister Magoo (Goggles, Qld).
In Division 3, the spoils went to Jack Middleton's Opus (NSW) after he won every race of the series. The other podium places went to John Fowell's Trail Blazer (Qld) and Ian Bowles' Resin Up (NSW).
"The conditions suited us pretty good. I've got family for crew, my wife Jessica, my sister Kaitlyn, my dad Kevin and my father-in-law David – it's his 60th birthday today. Jess and I are on a trip around Australia trip with our three kids and we stopped in to do the regatta," Middleton said.
On finishing with a clean scorecard, Middleton said, "We really like the bigger breeze. We're still learning the boat though. We've had it a couple of years, but don't sail it regularly together, just on special occasions.
"We were here last year and had such a great time and we did again this year. We'll be back to Race Week as much as we can and want to thank everyone here who did such a great job with the regatta."
Multihull Racing
Division 1 went to Cut Snake (Stuart Cox, Qld) which led the series from the first day. Four points separated Cut Snake from second placed local boat, Ullman Sails (Paul Mitchell). Stuart Malouf's Coconuts rounded at the top three.
Division 2 went the way of Terry O'Brien's The Stig (NSW). O'Brien's win today and a third place by previous series leader, Beatrix (Ray Martin, WA) turned the tables.
"It was a good race on the Bay, but a hard one, because we had a lot of problems with our spinnaker, we couldn't get it off the furler. We knew Ray was in a position to knock us off and there was at least half a dozen lead changes," a thrilled O'Brien said.
"We came second last year to Peter Hackett (Intrigue). This is our fourth year in a row here and a fourth trying to win. It's fantastic. We came out of monohulls and Peter Hackett told us it would take four years to learn to sail a multi – and he was right. It's taken us this long to hit our groove.
"It been a great year up here, except we broke our rudder in half on the third day, it broke at the bottom of the rudder stock. We found the blade in the Channel, even though it was rough. It took us 18 hours to do a strong but ugly repair. It doesn't steer that well, but it works! And we won, we're pretty happy with that, it's made the win all that sweeter. Never give up," O'Brien said.
Multihull Passage
Ian Mewett's Social Platform (Qld) came from behind to claim the Multihull Passage win, which he did on countback to yesterday's leader, Favourite Child (Gavin Le Sueur (Qld). A win today, compared to Favourite Child's fourth, made the difference.
"When Alba Dash broke her centreboard and retired, we got two guys from them that really know their stuff – and we're amateurs – and they helped us immensely," Mewett admitted. "We were able to get the boat sailing using all the sails, including screechers and spinnakers. We absolutely learnt from the experienced guys.
"Winning was the last thing we expected though – the boat's a 50 foot Lagoon (design). The guys suggested we go caravan racing – they won't be saying that again! We've enjoyed ourselves a lot at Airlie, but it's been so windy and we were breaking things quite a lot," Mewett concluded.
Performance Racing
South Australian's had the game stitched up in Performance Racing and the top two from yesterday remained the same. So it was that Neil Young's Carbontest.au came out the victor from Scott Mutton's Cool C4TS. Both represent Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron and finished on equal points, Young taking the gong on countback. Garry Gudmunson's Organised Chaos (NSW) maintained third place.
Boss Hog Trophy
A highlight of the week is awarding the Boss Hog Trophy to the competitor/crew that best sums up the spirit of Race Week, displays sportsmanship and stands above the rest. This year the award went to the crews of Stuart Cox's Cut Snake and Stuart Malouf's Coconuts.
The two multihulls left the race and stood by their fellow Division 1 competitor, Pierre Gal's Fez, after it capsized on Day 3 of competition. The two crews ensured that Gal and his crew were safe and stayed until officials were able to assess the situation. The crew of Fez and WSC are grateful to the crews of the two boats.
Terry Archer, Event Chairman of ABRW, regatta thanked all competitors for continuing to support the Club's annual event, "and we look forward to welcoming you back next year," he said.
Archer also thanked naming rights sponsor, 74 Islands Distillery and added, "Competitors who won during the week enjoyed 74 Islands Distillery gin, as did those who came to the tastings," he said, going on to also thank ABRW partners.
"I particularly want to thank our volunteers on the water and ashore, who give of themselves tirelessly, a number of them for many, many years. This event could not be run without them."
Heather Sutton is on her second stint as Commodore of WSC and also co-ordinates all the volunteers. In that role she keeps a close eye on everything to do with Race Week, including the welfare of the volunteers.
One of the many unsung heroes of the event, quietly doing her job, Commodore Sutton says, "It's so much easier this time, because I know most the volunteers and what's required."
We look forward to seeing you all again next year.
For full results in all classes and divisions at 74 Islands Distillery Airlie Beach Race Week, please visit the ABRW Race Results page.
