To give continuing evidence of how competitive Race1 Ker 11.3s are in IRC competition, Anthony Paterson’s Tow Truck won IRC Division 2 in the 2009 Sydney to Hobart race and Peter Wintle’s Koull Baby won the IRC Premier Cruising Class in the 8th Royal Langkawi Int Regatta 2010 in Malaysia. Two big wins in two important regattas by the only 11.3s competing in the events.

Koull Baby is the former Jaywalker from Hong Kong and has only been recently purchased by Peter Wintle, after the original owner Paul Bankowski had enjoyed quite a few years sailing it and winning with it. So it is a tremendous achievement to go straight out and win the first major event Peter and his team have sailed with the 11.3.

In fact they made it a bit difficult for themselves as they were not quite in winning form in the first three races, including being OCS in the third race and having to return. They then shifted to a higher gear and won all the last four races, which was enough to bring them level on points with the series leader Katsu, a Club Swan 42. Koull Baby won the tiebreak on countback to take the LADA-IRC Challenge Trophy. This was an excellent performance when they had left themselves so much to do after three races.

Tow Truck, the former El Gringo when in the UK, recorded its second consecutive class win in one of the highly competitive IRC divisions in the Sydney to Hobart. An important aspect of this was that it was in quite different wind conditions, as it was generally lighter than in 2008, and so showed the 11.3’s strong all-round performance. On corrected time, Tow Truck was more than 10 minutes ahead of its closest rival, AFR Midnight Rambler, a well-sailed modified Farr 40, that had also finished second to them in 2008.

Both Anthony Paterson and Peter Wintle, and their teams, are to be congratulated on their excellent results.

For more information, contact Race1 on 07005 388599 or e-mail u2canrace1@aol.com