Geoff Boettcher steers Secret Mens Business 3.5 towards an overall win. Image copyright Andrea Francolini/Audi.
by Di Pearson
South Australian Geoff Boettcher and his Secret Mens Business 3.5 crew are already celebrating their provisional Division 1 overall win of the 34.3 nautical mile Passage Race at Audi Victoria Week this afternoon as they wait for confirmation.
“I wish I had that bottle of Moet here,” said Boettcher, who was with his crew at the Royal Geelong Yacht Club, which hosts the event. The businessman was unable to pick up his prize from the Audi Docklands Invitational as ‘secret mens business’ called him away.”This would be a great time to have a sip of champagne,” he said.
On a more serious note, Boettcher’s luck has not been the best over the last couple of years; his former yacht was holed in a collision prior to the opening race at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week in 2008 and the list goes on, culminating in a broken backstay in the Audi Docklands Invitational yesterday costing him a podium place.
“At the Docklands we realised we had the potential - but we’re not used to sailing in competitive fleets – we don’t have many grand prix yachts at home. We have to learn the game of how to be aggressive and how to take opportunities,” said Boettcher admitting, “We’ve had a bit of bad luck, but we’re not deterred.
‘Boettch’ confirmed that committed crewman and former America’s Cup navigator Steve ‘Reggie’ Kemp and match racing champion Michael Dunstan on tactics had hatched a race plan and stuck to it. “We planned to have a clean start and to stay on the left side of the course and we stuck to that.”
Boettcher, who won Division 1 overall at this event in 2007 to win the first round of the Audi IRC Australian Championship, continued: “We’re very happy that Living Doll did not get too far away from us and that we kept pace with the TP52’s; it’s given us confidence for the races ahead. We need to stay focussed on the shorter courses over the next two days.
Currently, today’s line honours winner, Living Doll, a Farr 55 owned by Victorian Michael Hiatt, is second overall. Hiatt and his tactician Ross Lloyd were unable to put quite enough distance on Boettcher’s boat and lost out by 1minute 38 seconds once the handicaps were calculated.
Full overall results will be confirmed once the entire 335 boat fleet has finished the race.
Audi Victoria Week
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