The Next Challenge strengthens their lead at Sydney 38 Nationals

Four races were completed on day two of the 2012 Sydney 38 Australian Championships hosted by The Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club with ‘The Next Challenge’ team skippered by Mark Bulka, winning the day and leading by eight points going into the final day tomorrow.

Representing 85 year old legend Lou Abrahams and the Victorian Sandringham Yacht Club, ‘The Next Challenge’ epitomised a model of consistency on day two with a 2-2-1-3 scorecard to lead overall in the championship from the Quick brothers ‘Outlaw’ from the CYCA whilst the RPAYC’s Bruce Ferguson’s ‘Whisper’, after an honest day’s racing moved into clear third, a further four points behind.
 
Race Officer Ted Anderson got racing underway on time at 1100hrs, taking advantage of a 10 knot ESE bumpy seaway on the Palm Beach circle, a stark contrast to the previous day’s benign conditions.

The Quick brothers ‘Outlaw’ took honours in the first race and their first bullet for the series after edging a lead on the first beat and maintaining it for the entire race to beat home ‘The Next Challenge’ with Mark Griffith’s ‘Old School’, from the RPAYC, placing third.
 
The second race saw the breeze build slightly. With the fleet spread down the line, a clean start was declared with ‘Eye Candy’ getting off the line best in clear air at the pin end. With ‘Thirlmere’ going right, ‘Old School’ tracked a path down the middle of the course to gain an early advantage with tactician Steve McConaghy calling the shots. It was the right decision as ‘Old School’ defended their ground to lead at the bottom gate from ‘Risk’ and ‘The Next Challenge’. The only thing that changed from there to the finish was the lower podium with ‘Old School’ crossing first with ‘The Next Challenge’ and ‘Risk’ trading places.
 
Race three and the fleet bunched in the middle of the start line before evenly spreading left, right and down the middle for the first beat to the top mark. Neil Sutton’s ‘Rush’ provided the only incident in the race, withdrawing with a broken rudder and heading straight back in to end their day’s racing.
 
At the bottom gate, with ‘The Next Challenge’ leading from ‘Whisper’, a change of course was indicated to 105 as the breeze swung more to the South East. Action was aplenty at the bottom mark as boats jammed the gate trying to get their way through. In the final downwind, as the boats gybed their way to the finish it was ‘The Next Challenge’, recording their first bullet of the championship to win from the fast finishing ‘Zen’ with ‘Whisper’ sneaking their way into third.
 
After some rain, three general recalls and a black flag, the final race of the day finally got away just before 1600hrs with the start line favouring the boat end and some over zealous skippers OCS in the lead up to the finale. With the South Easterly now established at 18-20 knots, the fleet finally got away to a clean start for the final hour of racing over the four mile course.
 
For defending national champion Bruce Foye and his crew aboard ‘The Goat’, they finally returned to the winner’s circle surfing over the line in a well deserved victory to win by a  whisker from ‘Whisper’ whilst ‘The Next Challenge’ edged out ‘Old School’ by a nose.

After a long day in the office and an eventful day on the water, the tired crews were clearly relieved to head back to the RPAYC to heal their wounds and prepare for the final day in the Sydney 38 Nationals tomorrow.
 
Mark Bulka, skipper of the leader ‘The Next Challenge’ was quietly pleased with his crews efforts said the plan for tomorrow is to “play it safe, stay out of trouble and not take too many risks. The crew have performed really well and the boat is responding, so we’re extremely pleased with where we’re at but it’s not over yet. With no drops, one bad result could change everything. We’ll just keep focused and do our best tomorrow.”

With a 10-15 knot Easterly predicted, four more races are planned to round out the national championship tomorrow with racing to start at 1100hrs.
 
The 2012 Sydney 38 National Champion will be crowned at a prize giving at the RPAYC tomorrow evening.

Day Two results and progress score can be viewed at Sydney38Results

- Damian Devine