The UON SB20 World Championships, held at Hamilton Island in December 2012, saw one of the closest fought series of races.
The event concluded with Geoff Carveth’s British WKD team sailing into the SB20 class history books to be crowned SB20 world champion for the third time.
With his crew including South African Olympic yachtsmen Asenathi Jim and Roger Hudson, along with Lesley Dhonau, Carveth’s victory was only confirmed after a results countback – as Glenn Bourke’s Australian entry Club Marine and Rodion Luke’s Team Russia all completed the series tied on 41 points after six days and 12 races.
With the leading SB20 boats and crews so competitively matched, one of the advantages used by Carveth was his Racemaster compass from Raymarine which provided essential data from the race course. The ultimate tactical race compass and wind shift indicator, the wireless and solar-powered Racemaster was fitted to the WKD SB20 in a position where all the crew could easily see all the critical data, thanks to the dual-angled high visibility screens.
With each member of the crew contributing to the race tactics from pre-race decisions about the favoured end of the start line through to calling the downwind shifts to gybe, the Racemaster’s fast and accurate data made sure the team had the most reliable information on hand at every stage of the race.
Renowned for his famous ‘Carveth curve’, Geoff admitted he took a risk on the last race and, gambling for a better ranking, took the right-hand side of the course in the final race, with Bourke and Rodion going left. It turned out to be the only time during the whole event that the right-hand side paid off.
Geoff said with the mainly light conditions and consistent left hand backing from the wind, getting a good start was key in order to hold a clear wind lane to gain enough distance to cross the pack and tack onto the best wind shifts in clear air.
He said, “We all used the Racemaster compass as a very reliable source of information. From countdown pre-start to boat heading and boat speed, as a team we were all viewing the easy-to-read dual screens. This allowed us all to be dialed in to focus on boat speed and course at every moment of the race.”
The Racemaster is part of Raymarine’s wireless instrument race, and is one of the most popular models for keelboats, sportsboats and dinghies. Used by many of the Olympic classes, the Racemaster’s two tier, dual-angled screen displays the boat’s heading, how far above or below the mean course, and how much the boat is being lifted or headed. Using the Racemaster, the crews can quickly and easily establish the favoured end of the start line, and show the shortest distance to the windward mark. Crucially for asymmetric tactical downwind racing, the Racemaster shows how far the boat is off dead downwind and when to gybe for optimal VMG. In addition to the T070 Racemaster, there is the smaller T060 Microcompass, the T075 Racemaster System and Triducer, the T210 Wireless Multifunction Maxi Display and the T215 Wireless Multifunction Dual Maxi Display for larger yachts.