News

Rogers Fights Back in SB20 NATIONALS Day 2 Wrap

Published Sun 24 Mar 2024

Nick Rogers, sailing Karabos, has come out fighting on the second day of the SB20 Australian Championship in Beauty Point with three bullets and a second place taking him into the lead in the regatta. After a difficult first day, Rogers with his crew of Cole Dabner and Simon Burrows, hardly put a foot wrong in the tough and blustery conditions which suited this team, which loves big winds and fast downhill legs.

Karabos sits on top of the leaderboard on 11 points and has a four-point buffer from yesterday’s leader, Rob Davis sailing Nutcracker, with a further three points back to Paul McCartney sailing Ares, with an OCS in Race 7 costing them places today.

Rogers was happy with his team’s performance and made consistent tactical choices in the windy conditions. “We had a lovely day today…there were a lot of westerly and north westerly [winds] but we went left every time and it just paid off for us,” said Rogers.

Racing started on an incoming tide with north westerly breezes swinging westerly and gusting to 25 knots on and off for most of the day.

Race Officer Peter Sluce from the Port Dalrymple Yacht Club was keen to get four races in today with the fleet facing possibly stronger winds for the final day on Monday. “We were a bit apprehensive about what the westerly was going to do, it was obviously honking pretty hard out in Bass Strait, but its influence didn’t come into the River [Tamar], and the angle was fairly good…it was fairly shifty though…but some fantastically close racing. We had a couple of shining performances from the local guys who got onto the right spot and stayed in there,” said Sluce.

The fleet took a battering today with wipe outs and breakages taking their toll on some boats. Rebellion, skippered by Stephen Catchpool was the first to strike trouble, retiring from the day’s racing after a wild broach in Race Five saw the spinnaker go under the boat and a crew member aggravate an existing injury.

Wicked, skippered by Paige Caldecoat, held onto fourth place on 34 points, despite not competing in the final race after breaking the boom.

Cook Your Own Dinner was pleased with their consistency, playing it safe in the tricky conditions to avoid any wipeouts and taking advantage of the shifting breezes when they could. “There was a lot on out there, a lot of breeze happening on off, on off, but our boat handled it well. We are a great team…we have young Laila Grafton at the front of our boat who keeps us entertained and has more energy than any of us. “In our last race we had a pearler of a pin start which got us into a great position but then we did start to play it safe. We always say that when it gets above 20 to 25 knots, we have to play it safe. We broached once, got back up, and off we went,” said Allison.

Two races remain in the ten race series.

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Words and images: Jane Austin, SB20AUS Media