By Ian Grant.
Mooloolaba Yacht Club skipper Rod Jones wrote another chapter into the colourful history of Australian ocean racing when he steered his high performance Archambault A40 Alegria to win the Audi Australian IRC championship at Hamilton Island last Saturday.
He has a relatively common surname but stands alone as the most successful Australian skipper in terms of winning the prestigious national championship for the second time since August 2007.
Two years ago skipper Rod Jones and his crew of talented Sunshine Coast sailors ‘sailed under the radar’ to win the inaugural Audi Australian championship with a regatta to spare following their class win in the Audi Sydney to Gold Coast Race.
Ironically their 2009 challenge hit a stumbling block on the same course after Alegria expertly navigated by James Walker had provisionally claimed third place overall in what was considered as their best career result in the 384 n/ml coastal passage classic.
But several hours later a protest hearing at The Southport Yacht Club followed by a 20 % time penalty for missing a fleet position radio report had plunged a brief celebration into an experience of bewilderment and despair.
However the Alegria crew of skipper Rod Jones, navigator James Walker, tactician Adrian Finglas and World champion Etchells sailor Bucky Smith expressed an element of individual pride with the rest of the crew last Saturday when Alegria won the Audi Hamilton Island Race Week IRC Division 2 championship on an almost windless Whitsunday Passage.
Their final race win over a shortened Molle-Daydream Island course ended a week long boat on boat match race with Alegria mastering the nine race light wind series to record a 1-9-2-2-4-1-4-5-1 to claim the class title by the minor margin of 2 points over the impressive Phil Coombs skippered Victorian sloop Decadence.
This victory completed a campaign which started in January with a class win in the Skandia Geelong Race Week on the tricky waters of Corio Bay and ended with an equally demanding tactical challenge in the warm and almost windless Whitsunday Islands with Alegria winning Australia’s most valuable prize an Audi A6 all road Quattro valued at AUD $115,000.
Winning another Audi was a deserved reward for doing the hard yards with successful results including individual class wins on unfamiliar courses in Victoria, New South Wales and tropical North Queensland.
The result was a personal triumph for Rod Jones and another major success for the European Archambault design team and boat yard.
“Selecting the Archambault 40 RC was never a difficult choice as a step up from winning in the smaller A35”. Jones Said.
“The A40RC is purpose designed for IRC class racing, it’s reasonably quick for its size easy to sail with no vices and loves a bit of pressure however she struggles a bit in light winds”. He said.
Alegria was not on her own in the struggle to maintain a competitive boat speed in the unfamiliar hot and light winds at Hamilton Island she did ‘stick’ motionless at times while the enthusiasm skill and technique of her crew proved the difference which all talented crews manage to achieve when the going gets tough.