italiaspeed.com

Despite winning the start and quickly establishing a lead in the final race of the Australian 18ft Skiff Championship, held in Sydney Harbour on Sunday, "Fiat", crewed by Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Nathan Ellis, narrowly missed out on overall title honours.

Instead Micah Lane, Jack Macartney and Drew Waller became the new Australian 18ft Skiff Champions when they brought their Macquarie Real Estate-sponsored skiff home in second place. The young crew have shown remarkable improvement since they took over their brand new skiff just two months ago and now loom strongly for the upcoming Giltinan Championship (16-25 February). John Harris and the very experienced Rag & Famish Hotel crew sailed superbly to win Sunday's race by a massive 2 minutes and 51 seconds from Macquarie Real Estate with John Winning's Ssangyong Yandoo boat a further 50 seconds back in third place.

Going into this race the Giltinan champion Michael Coxon (Fiat) and Seve Jarvin (Gotta Love It 7) held a one point lead over Macquarie with Ssangyong Yandoo a further one point back. Fiat won the start a quickly established a lead as the fleet worked their way to the middle of the harbour. The light easterly played its usual 'tricks' and turned the placings upside down as the leaders reached the Rose Bay windward mark.

By that stage Rag & Famish held a 25secs lead over Asko Appliances (Hugh Stodart), Macquarie Real Estate and Kinder Caring Home Nursing. Ssangyong Yandoo was in sixth place but the other two championship contenders Gotta Love It 7 and Fiat were more than 1 minute and 30 seconds back and realistically no chance overall. While Rag & Famish dominated the race throughout, most interest centred on the battle for minor placings and overall winner. Macquarie Real Estate held the advantage over Ssangyong Yandoo until the final windward leg when Winning's crew put ssangyong Yandoo two boat lengths ahead off the mouth of Double Bay. Lane's team fought back to regain second place as the pair headed for home and retained their advantage on the spinnaker run to the finish.