Tasmanian Three Peaks Race, Peccadillo sets new record for Beauty Point to Lady Barron leg

From the following Sail-World article submitted by Peter Campbell

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Three-Peaks-Race---Catamaran-slashes-first-leg-record/107922

In the 25th Tasmanian Three Peaks Race, the Melbourne catamaran Peccadillo tonight smashed the record for the first sailing leg, sailing the 90 nautical miles across eastern Bass Strait from Beauty Point on the Tamar River to Lady Barron on Flinders Island in a remarkable 6 hours and 19 minutes.

The Atlantic 46, skippered by Charles Meredith, berthed at Lady Barron just after 8.50pm, recording the quickest first sailing leg in the history of this challenging combination of ocean sailing and endurance running around Tasmania’s coast.

Her time cut 1 hour and 19 minutes off the Beauty Point to Lady Barron sailing leg set in the 1997 race by the fast trimaran Island Paint Company, better known as Twisted Sister.

Peccadillo averaged just under 13 knots in boatspeed, at times surfing at 15 to 18 knots before slowing down to negotiate the shifting shallows that surround the entrance to the fishing port of Lady Barron.

While this is the sixth Three Peaks Race for Peccadillo’s skipper Charles Meredith, it is the first for the running team of Phil Sicklinger from Sydney and Daniel Trevena from Melbourne.

They quickly jumped ashore as the yacht came alongside Lady Barron wharf, setting off in darkness on the 65 nautical endurance run across to the western side of Flinders Island, ahead of them a tough climb to the granite peak of Mount Strzelecki and back to Lady Barron.

Peccadillo comfortably won the duel to Lady Barron from the Hobart-based catamaran Euphoria Furniture, better known as Storm Bay and skippered by Steven Laird as they ran downwind before a 20 to 25 knot westerly wind.

The Hobart catamaran was expected to finish within an hour of Peccadillo with her more experienced runners striving to make up the overall time deficit and take Euphoria Furniture to an earlier start on the second sailing leg, 145 nautical miles from Lady Barron to Coles Bay on the Tasmanian East Coast.

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