Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race

Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron's Peter Hollis better known for sailing in the single handed Contender dinghy added more glitter to his trophy cabinet over Easter.

Hollis has recently focused on ocean racing with the Hugh Welbourne designed Heaven Can Wait, winning line honours in the Queensland Cruising Yacht Club's 2006 Brisbane to Gladstone race over Easter.

This was a special result for Queensland's Heaven Can Wait crew who ended the domination in recent years by the Sean Langman skippered New South Wales pocket maxi AAPT and Grant Wharington's Victorian super-maxi and race record holder Skandia.

Skandia looked set to claim the line honours trophy again this year when she led Heaven Can Wait, Bill Wild's Wedgetail, the Kevin Miller skippered Quest of Queensland and the smaller Mooloolaba sloop Corum (Michael Balkin) out of Moreton Bay on Good Friday afternoon.

But Skandia's race was over before she reached the 50 nautical mile mark in the 308 nautical mile race. Whilst sailing along in a sedate 10 knot breeze a $50 bearing bush dislodged itself from around a pin which holds the keel hydraulic cylinder into the solid carbon fibre keel frame. Although the boat and all on board were completely safe and the boat could have finished the race, the replacement of the bush would have become more difficult and time consuming to do if they had continued. Skandia arrived back in Brisbane on Friday evening.

Skandia was chartered by former record holder Kerry Spencer who steered the Sunshine Coast built pocket-maxi Bobsled to consecutive race records in 1992 and 1993.

Heaven Can Wait won line honour by over two and a half hours from Wedgetail with Quest of Queensland finishing over an hour later.

Heaven Can Wait also won on Performance Handicap when they outpaced the lower handicapped QCYC sloop Jo (Mark Bucknall) and Trumpeter (Charles MacDonald).

Heaven Can Wait missed a clean sweep of all the major trophies when Michael Balkin steered his Hugh Welbourne modified Mumm 36 Corum to become the 58th winner of The Courier-Mail Cup with her faster 6.22 second per mile corrected handicap course time.

In other classes Jo won the Performance Handicap Division 2 from Trumpeter and Lloyds Business Broker Too Impetuous (Rudy Weber) while skipper Rudy Weber won the Veteran class from On Tap (Marc Stuart) and Graffiti (Steve D'Arx).

Long term Gladstone race skipper Peter Holm piloted the comfortable Marriah to be the best of the cruising class winning the predicted log event by two points from Sunfast One (John Banck) with another one point to Jo.