By Ian Grant.
Popular Pioneer Bay sailor Rod Sawyer remains in a strong position to steer Surefoot to a comfortable win in the Whitsunday Sailing Club Airlie Sails Rum Bucket series.
Surefoot has continued to show her design pedigree from the drawing board of Sweden’s Peter Norlin to hold a three point lead after three races sailed in a varied range of conditions from soft and variable to be the star performer winning race three in moderate 10-15 knot trade wind.
The crafty nature of Sawyer’s helming skills blended with an equally dedicated crew kept the race weary Surefoot logging the required all angle boat speed to outpace her .760 rating when limit marker Questionable Logic was unchallenged for first use of the breeze.
Skipper Terry Archer who previously enjoyed time to update his race strategy at the helm of the comfortable and much slower Bavaria cruiser Africa challenged the race clock while his rival skippers relentlessly chased the wake of Questionable Logic when she powered away to win line honours by 3 minutes 16 seconds from Jeff Brown’s 007 with another 2 minutes 8 seconds to Surefoot.
However while this was an impressive maiden race performance by Terry Archer and crew their winning course time fell well short of the time required to beat their 1.000 handicap.
But that will progressively change in coming weeks when skipper and crew become more familiar to the change of pace from ‘just cruising’ to racing in the fast lane.
Meanwhile the ‘golden oldie’ Surefoot continues to prove she has the speed and crew skills to relive some of her former glory from competing in the Admirals Cup to upstage her more modern rivals.
This was clearly evident when skipper Rod Sawyer elected to tactically sail his own race when Questionable Logic and 007 set the pace at the head of the fleet.
Predictably Rod Sawyer accepted that both yachts were simply too fast for the older and slower Surefoot but he remained focused on the more important time factor of sailing at the required speed to upstage them on corrected handicap.
His tactical strategy was rewarded when the Surefoot crew managed to beat the clock with a narrow 17 second win over 007 while John Hudson completed a tight finish when her steered Riff Raff into third another 19 seconds off the pace.
More importantly those 17 seconds now favour the Surefoot crew to enjoy a celebratory drink from the Airlie Sails Rum Bucket after the final race is decided off Airlie Beach this week.
Surefoot with her 4-5-1 (10pts) is well poised but skipper Rod Sawyer is expecting a late challenge from Colin Pruden’s Sandpiper 2-7-4 (13pts) who presently controls second place on count back over his father-in-law John Galloway in Queensland Marine Services (5-2-6) 13 pts.
The private family duel promises to heat up while the Surefoot crew only need to finish in the top three to add yet another trophy to her impressive log book.