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  • Salt Shaker takes two-handed line honours in Flinders Islet Race

Salt Shaker takes two-handed line honours in Flinders Islet Race

Salt Shaker takes two-handed line honours in Flinders Islet Race

Salt Shaker takes two-handed line honours in Flinders Islet Race

Peter Franki and Drew Jones led home the two-handed fleet in an early morning finish.

After more than 17 hours of racing, the battle for line honours in the Two-Handed Division came down to just two minutes. 

Franki and Jones' Sydney 36 Salt Shaker and Jules Hall's J99 Disko Trooper_Contender Sailcloth (co-skippered by Jan Scholten) pulled away from their two-handed challengers out of the Heads and engaged in a tight tussle down the NSW coast. 

As the day rolled over, the breeze dropped to just 3-4 knots for their return to Sydney Harbour.

It was 0303hrs when Salt Shaker crossed the line, with Disko Trooper_Contender Sailcloth just over two minutes behind.

"We got a pretty good start, we got out of the Harbour ok," Franki said.

"Disko Trooper was in front of us at that stage and they were our main challenger, but we had a lovely sail down to Flinders Islet.

"It was a nice sail back up in varied conditions - the maximum wind speed we had was around 25 knots and it was mostly NNE.

"It was quite a scenic trip up the coast. We came right in close to Port Hacking at night, then short tacking up the coast between Port Hacking and Sydney was quite tiring.

"We were tacking every six or seven minutes, I guess. We made a couple of big gains and a couple of big losses.

"We went down to around two knots as we were rounding Hornby Light, then we got a little bit of a westerly shift for a few minutes and then it went out to the nor-westerly, so we put out an A sail and just zig-zagged.

"But I had a great co-pilot, Drew Jones, and the competition was keen but very friendly. It's great to see so many people embracing this new dimension to sailing."

Shane Connelly's J99 Rum Rebellion was third on line honours and IRC, marking an impressive debut for Shane and Graeme Dunlop. 

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