The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia has announced  that an ORCi Division will be included in its prestigious Blue Water Pointscore 2010-2011 Series, which starts with the Audi Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race on Saturday 31 July and includes this years’ Rolex Sydney Hobart Race.

Yachts competing in the ORCi division of the Rolex Sydney Hobart  will be vying for the Charleston Trophy, which will be awarded to the overall winner of the division. The trophy has been donated by the family of the Charles Davies’ family and the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania.

Whistler, sailed by Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania members David Rees, Tim Jones and Jory Linscott, has become the first monohull since 2000 to win outright the Hydro Three Peaks Race, the gruelling combination of ocean racing and endurance mountain running around the northern and eastern coastline of Tasmania.

The Dovell 36 finished the final sailing leg at Constitution Dock shortly before 8pm on Easter Monday where the three sailors joined endurance runners, Jacqui Guy and  Michael McIntyre, in a 33km dash to the peak of Mount Wellington. 

Former world champion Nick Rogers and his crew of Leigh Behrens and Simon Burrows from Hobart have pulled the Easter Bunny out the hat to win the significant pre-world regatta for the International Dragon class on Melbourne’s Port Phillip.

After a slow(ish) start over the first two days,   the Tasmanian crew, sailing Karabos IX  from the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania,  won three straight races to grind down the talented Russian yachtswoman Olga White,  steering Murka 11. 

 Karabox IX winning the Tasmanian championships on the Derwent two weekends ago.  Photo:  Peter Campbell

The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania's Nick Rogers  sailed to a record-breaking 10th win in the Tasmanian championships for International Dragon yachts last weekend,  an important step towards winning a second world championship in the three-crew, one-design keelboat class.

Steering Karabos XI,  Rogers moved ahead of fellow Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania member Don Calvert’s record of nine wins in the classic Dragons, adding this to his nine wins in the prestigious Prince Philip Cup Australasian champion and his world title in 1995.

When young Jock Calvert won the Tasmanian title in the single-handed Sabot dinghy class at Wynyard over the recent long weekend in March, he became the fourth generation of champion sailors in the Calvert dynasty from the Huon.  And his younger brother, Angus, is not far behind.

It was a great week for the Calverts, his grandfather Don notching up a remarkable 58th pennant win on the Derwent with his 25-year-old 40-footer Intrigue.

Don Calvert with grandson Angus (10) and Jock (12) Calvert