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11:28 AM Sat 11 Apr 2009 GMT
They say that it blows all or nothing on Port Esperance and today was a bit of the latter for competitors in the 2009 Huon Tasmanian Salmon Port Esperance Regatta, Australia's southernmost sailing regatta.
The lightest of westerly land-breezes saw away the racing and cruising divisions for the Channel Race to Zuidpool Rock and return. Twenty minutes later and the inshore breeze had disappeared so the race committee sent the combined dinghy fleet ashore for an early lunch.
By 1300 the skies had cleared and the land heated up enough to allow a light seabreeze to fill in. The keelboats finally cleared the bay and the dinghies lined up for the first of three races.
Sabots fill the first three places overall. Alexsandrs Price leads the series after two wins and a third in Priceless. Second overall is Red Alert helmed by Nelson Brown with third place held by Lachlan Hargreaves. Line honours in all three races were taken out by Richard Creleigh's A-Class catamaran No Bananas, followed by the A-Class of Hendrik Lange with Justin Barr's Taser Liquid Fix and Peter Bridley's NS14 Fast Asleep battling for third on the water.
Matt Westland comfortably leads the Sabre class after three wins.
The bigger boats bobbed around in the d'Entrecasteaux Channel for quite sometime until the breeze filled. Scott Sharp's Runnalls 8 Lease of Life took the gun from Sally Rattle's A35 Archie. Not surprisingly, it was the little boats coming home with the pressure which dominated handicap honours.
Rhumun, Peter Masterton's Dufour 24 won from True Blue (David O'Neill) and Adrian Marsh's Mottle 33 Myfanwy.
Cruising Division handicap honours went to Rosella, the smallest boat in the fleet, helmed by Andrew Matton-Johnston, with Gordon Reid's Sea Challenger taking line honours.
Tomorrow the racing continues with the premier trophy events, the Driftwood William Jackson Memorial Cup for keelboats and the Tasmanian Private Realty BK Price Trophy for dinghies.
by Steve Harrison
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