Kiwis front up at Airlie Beach Race Week

The 38th Jeanneau and 74 Islands Airlie Beach Race Week wrapped up in the Whitsundays this week with whales in Pioneer Bay, 25 knot winds for the final day, and four Kiwi campaigns among the headline results, from the Whitsunday Sailing Club regatta in Queensland, Australia.

Ray Roberts and his Botin 40 Team Hollywood took out Rating Passage Division 1 with a near-perfect series, six points from seven races with one drop. New Zealander Brian Petersen, sailing his TP52 V5 under both Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Royal Akarana Yacht Club colours, finished fourth on 19 points, a single point adrift of Malcolm Dean’s Frantic in third. Petersen had been in the mix all week, second in the final race and never worse than fourth across the series.

The stronger Kiwi story came from the small boat fleet. Terry Bailey, sailing his Weta 4.4 Teal Spirit, won the Off The Beach Multihull series with six race wins from twelve starts, edging out Stuart House’s Nacra 500 The Bandicoot by two points. Bailey slipped and fell at last year’s regatta, was initially thought to have a slipped disc, and was later diagnosed with cancer, now in remission. “I haven’t been sailing since I left here last year,” he said. “One, because of the cancer and then it got too cold at home.” He hadn’t sailed the boat in a year going into the series.

A third Kiwi entry, Graham Catley’s Cat+Ion, sailing for the Royal Akarana Yacht Club, went even closer, finishing fourth in Multihull Racing Division 1 on 15 points, one point behind Steven Humphris’ Stealth Mode in third. Stuart Cox’s Cut Snake took the division from Troy Forrest’s Mint.

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Sharon Ferris-Choat’s Vixen Racing, the Bay of Islands sailor’s first Airlie Beach campaign, lined up in Performance Racing rather than the cruising ranks, and finished sixth overall on 26 points, with a race win along the way in Race 5. Tim McCall’s Barracuda took the division from Iyas Shaheen’s Smooth Criminal, with Hughie Lewis’ Hartbreaker third despite an early reef strike.

Roberts’ win extends a run that stretches back more than a decade. He has raced at Airlie Beach since 2015, missing the overall win only three times, and finished on the podium in each of those years regardless. He put the repeat success down to simple logic. “The best way to train is to race and the problem with racing yachts is we don’t race in competition with each other enough,” he said. “So coming to Airlie Beach is part of the plan and organisation to sail well at Hamilton Island in tough competition.”

The stand-out result of the week belonged to David Davenport and Ken Stevenson, who made the trip from Western Australia with their Bethwaite 89er, Don’t Panic!, and won every race in the Trailable Yachts and Sports Boats division.

Sportsmanship honours went to Ian and Annika Thomson of Ocean Crusaders J-Bird, who finished fifth in Rating Passage Division 1, collected cans each morning for junior sailing funds, and organised a lay day clean-up with 27 volunteers, hauling the rubbish out on their own barge.

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Kiwi campaigns are now bound for Hamilton Island Race Week, a roughly 14 to 16 nautical mile sail across the Whitsunday Passage, which has already started, running 15 to 22 August. For Petersen it’s a repeat trip, for Ferris-Choat and Catley, another first.