Old Sloop sets the pace at Hamilton Island

by Ian Grant on 23 Aug 2003 Cairns offshore racing skipper Darryl Hartshorne has placed a lot of faith in his ageing sloop Risky Business believing she still has the competitive speed to out sail the more modern designs.

That faith will almost certainly be rewarded when the race weary sloop rigged with second hand sails claims a deserved win in the 2003 Hahn Premium Race Week Performance Handicap class championship off Hamilton Island today.

Hartshorne representing the Cairns Cruising Yacht Squadron and assisted by long term sailing mates Bob Thomas of Mackay and Ian McDiarmid of Sydney have set the pace ‘benchmark’ piloting the Adams 13 class sloop to a 2-1-2-3-4-1-4 performance over seven searching light wind races.

Her crew who simply sail for the love of the sport and the valued time of sharing their friendships on the deck of Risky Business only need to finish in the top three in the 23n/ml South Molle-Daydream Island race today to turn the old sloop into a modern day champion.

However they will have to first master an unstable light northerly wind which hardly had the strength to ripple the waters on the Whitsunday Passage this morning.

The Risky Business crew has answered some tough demands before with crew navigator Bob Thomas plotting the course for AFR Midnight Rambler to sail through the tragic Bass Strait storm to win the 1998 Sydney-Hobart race.

Hopefully this experience will allow the popular Cairns skipper Darryl Hartshorne to helm Risky Business to a deserved title win over his major rivals Mike Davies helming the West Australian sloop Sandstone and the Lake Macquarie Yacht Club sloop Kerinda skippered by Len Payne.

Only 3 points separate the three yachts with Risky Business leading with the narrow margin of three points from Sandstone and Kerinda tied in second place.

This sets the stage for a class match race over the testing 23 n/ml Island passage race course today with the Risky Business crew favoured to edge clear with the hard core racing experience of her crew.