Today, the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron member, won heat four of the prestigious Prince Philip Cup for International Dragon class yachts on Hobart’s Derwent River to move into a close third place on the overall pointscore with three races to sail.

Results are provisional as one of three yachts called as OCS (on course side at start) has protested the race committee against its disqualification.

A late easterly seabreeze caused a major change in wind direction resulting in the last downsind leg changing from a spinnaker run to a two-sail reach and what should have been the final beat to windward became just one tack to the finish line.

Despite outstanding results in international yachting, Gordon Ingate has yet to win a Prince Philip Cup,  the national championship for the International Dragon class.

However, he is getting great support from two past Philip Cup winners  - Tasmanians Nick Rogers as his mainsheet trimmer and tactician and Simon Burrows as his for’ard hand.

As a helmsman Rogers has won eight Prince Philip Cups and a world championship in the Dragon class, as well as five Sayonara Cup interstate match racing contests.  Burrows crewed for the late Bruce Calvert in his Prince Philip Cup.

 “Gordon sails the boat extremely well and today we were in the lead virtually from the start,” Rogers said back at The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania. “Today it was a question of finding the pressure and staying with the pressure, which at its most reached 10 knots.

 “It was a great day for us…not so good for others,” Rogers added. “Gordon just steered, we set the sails and looked for the right way to go..and it all added up to a good win.”

Whim’s winning margin of 3 minutes 45 seconds was the biggest of the regatta so far,  with the Tasmanian yacht Kirribilli II, skippered by Andrew Crisp, recovering well to finish second after having to restart following a recall.

Third place went to another Tasmanian boat, Aquila, skippered by Jock Young, followed by West Australian Sandy Anderson at the helm of Sassafrass,  Tasmania’s Mystere (Wayne WaggO with the Sydney yacht Riga (Ian McCrossin), which had won two of the first three races of Cup regatta, in sixth place.

Provisionally,  Riga (NSW) still heads the overall pointscore after four races with 23.4 point, followed by Kirribilli II (Tas) on 24.7, Whim 26.0 (NSW),  Hotspur (Ken Stevenson, WA)  42.7, Aquila (Tas) 44.7 and Sassafrass (WA) 48.0 points. - Peter Campbell