Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race 2024

News
2013
Brannew wins Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race

Brannew wins Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race

NEWS
30 Jul, 2013 04:50:00 PM

Brannew has been declared the overall winner of the 28th Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race Copyright - www.SailPix.com.au

Brannew wins Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race

Sydney yachtsman Chris Bran has won his first major ocean race, late this afternoon being declared the winner of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s 384 nautical mile Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race shortly after 5.30pm this evening.

Bran, from the host club in Sydney, sailed his one year-old Beneteau First 40 cruiser/racer in the more often than not fickle and variable conditions to its optimum. He finished the slow race this afternoon at 1.40.59pm, but had to wait a few hours until it became impossible for Roger Hickman’s vintage Farr 43, Wild Rose, or others, to beat him.

His two other main challengers were Phil Molony’s A40 cruiser/racer, Papillon and Andy Kearnan’s Summit 35, L‘Altra Donna, which have provisionally finished second and third overall. Wild Rose is likely to claim fourth place overall.

“I bought the boat to do the Hobart last year and the 2012 Gold Coast race was our qualifier. To win the race this year is an incredible feeling,” Bran, who represents the CYCA, said early this evening at the Southport Yacht Club where the crew are celebrating.

“I went for a Bruce Farr design because they are tried and tested. A couple of years back, Bruce made the statement: ‘Every now and again we get one right’. This is one of the ones he got right,” Bran said.

Bran agreed with other competitors that it was a very tactical race. “We went both offshore and inshore – it was a very frustrating at times – but it was a great race,” he said.

The Sydney yachtsman knows there was a bit of luck involved and praised those who kept him sailing hard. “Phil on Papillon, Close Halled (Graeme Hall) and L‘Altra Donna (Andy Kearnan) all pushed us hard and were major competition for us,” he said.

Bran and his crew told of the wind dying last night and rain squalls coming through, but as they knew they were in with a chance and hoped the luck they had had so far, avoiding most of the windless spots on the course, would hold out.

“We got a shift and put our Code Zero up and sailed some of our best miles. We knew then we were in with a real chance,” Brand said. “Then Papillon caught us up again, but at Evans Head we cleared out and then we really started to find our legs,” added the yachtsman, who paid tribute to his crew, in particular Glen ‘Hedgie’ Cooper, his navigator.

“Hedgie is very methodical; he’s constantly checking the weather models and looking at the various scenarios. All my crew are top notch and it’s them who got us into first place,” he conceded.

In communication received from Close Halled at 6.00pm, Graeme Hall said: “What a long frustrating race. Close Halled approaching Southport finish.”

Under ORCi, provisionally L‘Altra Donna is the winner from Wild Rose and Occasional Coarse Language One (Robert Alder and Bill Bailey). Under PHS, the provisional top three are: Abracadabra (James Murchison), The Banshee (Corinne Feldmann and Rob Francis) and Upshot (Wayne Keavy).

As we went to press, only five boats remained at sea, including Wild Rose, which should finish around 7.00pm this evening.

Local Hero is the latest retirement from the race, bringing the total to 10. Like those before her, work commitments forced Peter Mosely out of the race.

The CYCA’s proven yacht tracker system is allowing family, friends and yachting enthusiasts to follow the race - and their favourite yachts - for its duration. Each yacht is fitted with a Yellowbrick tracker that is obtaining its position using the GPS satellite network, and then transmitting that position back to Yellowbrick HQ using the Iridium satellite network.

Each yacht’s position is then visualised on the race yacht tracker map via http://goldcoast.cyca.com.au, or overlaid on Google Earth. In addition, the yacht tracker system also shows distance to finish line and progressive corrected time positions under the IRC, ORCi and PHS handicap divisions throughout the race.

For more information and a full entry list log on to http://goldcoast.cyca.com.au, follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/SGCYachtRace or like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sydney-Gold-Coast-Yacht-Race