Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Nathan Ellis on board Fiat retained their title as the world’s best 18ft Skiff team when they won the SLAM-Winning Appliances JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship currently being sailed on Sydney Harbour.

Rag & Famish Hotel, skippered by John Harris, took the honours in yesterday's Race 6 of the championship but Coxon and his crew’s fifth placing was enough to give them an unbeatable lead with today’s final race still to come. Fiat has a total of 17 points without discarding their worst performance, which is allowed under the scoring system. Their nearest rival is Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and Rob Bell) who already have a minimum score of 18 points before tomorrow’s race.

In race 5 Rag & Famish Hotel defeated John Winning Jr’s appliancesonline.com.au by 59secs after a race-long battle between the two skiffs in the light north-east breeze.Third placing today went to Asko Appliances (Hugh Stodart) which finished a further 1min behind appliancesonline.com.au. Appliancesonline got a flyer at the start and quickly opened up a lead as the fleet headed to the Beashel Buoy windward mark.
 

Rag & Famish were the only ones in the race to be able to match the pace of appliancesonline and rounded the mark just 6secs behind that skiff. Asko Appliances was third ahead of Gotta Love It 7, CT Sail Battens (Phil Airey), Club Marine (Euan Mc Nicol), TMF Group (Jarrod Simpson), Macquarie Real Estate (Micah lane) and Fiat, which had fought her way through the fleet after being well back in the early part of the work.

On the downwind section of the course there was little change at the head of the fleet as appliancesonline was still leading narrowly when the pair turned for the second windward leg. Fiat gained at least three places on this leg to virtually ensure the team of championship success. Amazingly, at the next windward rounding mark appliancesonline was still 6sesc ahead of Rag & Famish while the rest of the fleet were still at least one minute back. Rag & Famish broke through to the lead on the spinnaker run down the middle of the course and from that point were never in danger of defeat.

While Fiat’s position overall is assured in the championship, the battle for the minor placings are still open and will ensure a great final race on Sydney Harbour today. Leading points (after discards) going into tomorrow’s race are:   Fiat – 11 points, Gotta Love It 7 18, Asko Appliances 20, appliancesonline.com.au 26.6, Rag & Famish Hotel 28 and Club Marine 31.