Smooth Sailing
Sailing
News By A Sailor For Sailors!
In association with Royal Natal Yacht Club, Henley Midmar Yacht Club
, South African
Hunter Class Association and Sailing
KZN.
www.smoothsailing.co.za
Since this is the final edition of Smooth Sailing for 2002 I
would like to thank all of you for your support during the past year. The
mailing list has shown some phenomenal growth in the last 12 months and traffic
through the web site continues to grow with each month that passes. Smooth
Sailing wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for the foresight and support of two
clubs who supported us from the outset. Without the backing of the Royal Natal
and Henley Midmar Yacht Club’s and the individuals in each club who motivated
the association through their respective committees we would never be where we
are today. The continued support of these clubs in addition to Sailing KZN and
the Hunter Class Association as well as some exciting new partnerships to be
announced in the New Year should see Smooth Sailing continue to grow in the
next year. Thank you all for helping make Smooth Sailing what it is today.
Finally, I would like to wish all my
friends, readers and fellow sailors a happy Christmas and a prosperous new
year.
RC Laser
Thursday Evening Racing
Sailing At
Henley Midmar Yacht Club
Your Weekend Weather outlook is as follows:
Durban & Richard’s Bay: Saturday will be
a scorching summers day at 31 degrees with clear skies and a northeasterly wind
which will freshen throughout the day. Sunday will be just the same although
partly cloudy later with a 30% chance of evening thundershowers.
Midmar: Both Saturday and Sunday will be very pleasant days at 27
degrees with partly cloudy skies and a 20% chance of thunderstorms later in the
day on both days. A fresh north westerly wind is set to blow all weekend.
Vaal Dam: The maximum temperature for both Saturday and Sunday will
be 30 degrees with mostly clear skies although there will be some cloud and
thunderstorms late on Sunday afternoon. The wind on Saturday will be a moderate
north to north easterly while on Sunday it will swing to the north west.
Cape Town: Saturday will be warm at 28 degrees. The sky will be mostly
clear although there will be some cloud patches around with a 40% chance of
showers during the day. The wind will be a moderate north westerly. Sunday will
be much cooler at 23 degrees with a partly cloudy sky and rain in the morning.
A fresh westerly wind is predicted for the day.
The final RC Laser Thursday
Evening Summer Series Regatta took place at the pond last night in a fresh northeasterly
wind. When I drove past it looked like there might have been a bit of a
difference if opinion as to the sail choices and I am sure that I sure a good
number of both big and small sails. Twenty skippers and boat turned out for a
long evenings racing with seven races sailed by the end. Once again the
moddelers dominated taking the top three places. This is something that really
needs to be sorted out in the new year! The full results are available on the
RC Laser web site at www.angelfire.com/hi5/rclaser_world while the top three places were
as follows:
1st Peter Simons 10
Points
2nd Des Fairbank 15
3rd Norrie Taylor 19
The Junior Nationals continue until
tomorrow at Aeolians Club at the Vaal Dam. Rob McCrystal tells me that things
have gone very well all week with some good sailing taking place on the water
and a lot of fun being had by all. The leaders in both classes seem to be
fairly dominant with some healthy points margins between first and second in
both the Oppi and Dabbi fleets. The full results after five races are posted on
the Smooth Sailing web site at www.smoothsailing.co.za/juniornat02rslts and will be
updated as soon as the next set of full results becomes available. In the
meantime the top five places overall are as follows:
Optimist (After 9 Races, Max 2 to sail):
1st Brett Stirk East London Yacht Club 14 Points
2nd Aaron Larkens Point Yacht Club 41
3rd Bronwen Klaas Pretoria Sailing Club 41
4th Phillipa Baer Redhouse Yacht Club 48
5th Rudi McNeil Point Yacht Club 48
Dabchick (After 8 Races, Max 4 to sail):
1st Andrew Tarbotton Henley Midmar Yacht Club 19
Points
2nd Peter Funke Traansvaal Yacht Club 34
3rd Kyle Klaas Pretoria Sailing Club 35
4th Marcus Progli IYC 37
5th Finn Fitsimons Zeekoeivlei Yacht Club 37
This weeks Wednesday Evening Fun Race was the last of
the year and took place in the worst possible conditions. Despite the miserable
weather, light wind and pouring rain, 12 cruising class yachts and 5 racers
took to the water. This shows a commendable amount of commitment, or possibly
insanity, it is hard to tell which! Either way most looked fairly pleased with
themselves, if a little drenched, when they got off the water. As well as the
winners of the actual race listed below the crew of the L26 Panache won a
special prize for being the best-dressed boat of the evening. Not only were the
crew well decked out in father xmas outfits of various descriptions but the
boat itself was quite a sight with what seemed to be the xmas tree lights
adorning the rig! Wednesday evening
racing now goes into recess until the 15th of January when the first
sail of 2003 will be hosted by the RNYC. The results of the race were as
follows:
Racing Class:
1st Rumblebum Hunter Dave
Claxton
2nd Wild Thing L26 Terry
Flynn
3rd Number 8 Fast 42 Bill
Tyler
Cruising Class:
1st Galactica L26 Dale
Gove
2nd Chatur Theta Greg Challis
3rd Aquilla Trapper Phil Downing
Table Bay Week ends today in
Cape Town. As of this morning the results after five races were available on
the RCYC web site at www.rcyc.co.za. In IRC Class 1
a titanic battle seems to be underway between Geoff Meek’s Mumm 30, Just Fun,
and Ellian Perch’s ILC 40, Orion Express. Orion Express is leading the regatta
at present but only by a slender one-point margin so it is still very open with
at least one more race to sail. In IRC Class 2 the J27 Hilly Billy, skippered
by Peter Hill has pretty much had things all her own way recording only firsts
and seconds in the races sailed to date. More interesting though is the L34
class class where Jennifer Burger’s Lapwing holds a one-point lead over Craig
Millar’s Sensation. Lapwing has three first places to Sensations two so Millar
really has no choice but to win the race in order to take first place overall.
That one should be an interesting battle. You can find the full results on the
RCYC web site but in the meantime the top three places in each class after 5
races are as follows:
IRC Class1:
1st Orion Express Ellian Perch ILC
40
2nd Just Fun Geoff Meek Mount
Gay 30
3rd Bally Hoo Too Iain Park-Ross Mumm
36
IRC Class 2:
1st Hilly Billy Peter Hill J27
2nd Lapwing Jennifer
Burger L34
3rd Sensation Craig Millar L34
L34:
1st Lapwing Jennifer
Burger
2nd Sensation Craig Millar
3rd Spectrum A. James
Since it is now officially the holidays it
is time to make use of your club! At the Royal Natal Yacht Club there are plenty of good reasons to be around not the least
of which is simply to sit around the bar quaffing beer and talking with fellow
yachties! This Sunday there will be live music and a braai on the lawns. Nicky
tells me that this weeks musician has just returned from an international tour
and will be making his debut at RNYC. The regular braai and festivities will be
on the go and if you are looking for something a bit more serious there is
always the upstairs buffet on which to lunch. The new years eve marquee is
basically fully booked. If you still want to attend you need to be particularly
nice to Nicky when you call her up on 031-301 5425 to see if she can squeeze
you in. Particular niceness should be enough to make sure that you crack a nod!
At Henley Midmar Yacht Club on Sunday their 31 Club Draw will take place after the days
fun sail, which is planned to start at 13:00. The entry fee for the event is a
small, wrapped Xmas gift, all of which will be donated to a suitable charitable
cause before Xmas. The event is a handicap one however I am told that the
regular handicaps will not apply and that a special Xmas Handicapping system
will be used. The gist of it is that the more Xmassy your boat looks the more
favourably the handicap committee will look upon you when allocating the
numbers! It sounds like a fun event and given the promising weather forecast it
stands to be a great day on the dam. Between Xmas and New Year the regatta of
the year stands to take place at HMYC. The 2002 Sprog Nationals is looking like it is going to be the
most amazing regatta both on and off the water. A heap of good sailors have
indicated that they will be taking part while the social program is looking
fantastic. I for one can’t wait for it all to get underway. For more
information visit the Sprog Nationals web page at www.smoothsailing.co.za/sprog.html.
In Around Alone
Race the fleet is now
well entrenched on the downwind sleigh ride in the roaring forties. Class one
leader, Bernard Stamm, has dived down as low as 46 degrees south, which really
is right in the iceberg zone. Others seem content to hang around the 40 south
mark which has to be a whole lot safer and less stresfull although also looks
like it is going to be a whole lot slower. Looking at the forecasts and weather
patterns there really seems to be an advantage in being as far south as Stamm
has gone and I am sure that the next few days will see him extending his lead
even further. For more information including the latest reports from the boats
visit the race web site at www.aroundalone.com. The current standings are as follows:
Class 1:
Bobst Group Amor-Lux 0 5951
Soldaires 66 6017
Tiscali 229 6180
Ocean Planet 247 6198
Hexagon 250 6201
Pindar 250 6201
Class 2:
Tommy Hilfiger 0 6304
Spirit of Canada 138 6442
Spirit of Yukoh 204 6509
Everest Horizontal 268 6573
BTC Velocity 286 6590
Bayer Ascensia 765 7070
The semi-final repechage round of the Louis Vuitton Cup started with Oracle BMW up against One
World. The winner of this match goes through to the final of the Louis Vuitton
Cup where they will sail against Alinghi while the losers goes home. The
intensity of this match should be a whole lot higher than that of the previous
ones so it should make for some great spectating. First blood in the round went to Oracle BMW who came from behind
on the first leg to take the lead before the weather mark. They then held off
One World for the remainder of the race. With One World having been deducted a
point by the Arbitration Panel they now find themselves two down after only one
race. One thing is for sure though, they will fight back! Keep and eye on the
action by visiting the regatta web site at http://www.louisvuittoncup.yahoo.com/.
Our Notices of Race page on the Smooth Sailing has all the NOR’s available to us. If you
have a regatta coming up and would like to make the NOR available online then
e-mail it to hethcot@iafrica.com and it will be posted and
listed in this newsletter. To get your copy simply click on the name of the
regatta you are interested in below:
Regatta Venue Dates
Western Cape Points Series Various WC Dinghy Clubs September 2002 to
March 2003
KZN Optimist Grand Prix Series Various KZN Venues November to
January
Sailing KZN Blue
Water Challenge Various KZN
Clubs December
2002 to July 2003
Junior Nationals Aeolians Club, Vaal Dam 14 to 21 December
Sprog Nationals Henley
Midmar Yacht Club 27 to 30 December
Stadt 23 Western
Province Champs Theewaters
Sports Club 28 & 29
December & 4 & 5 January
AFYC Fun Regatta 2002/2003 Albert
Falls Yacht Club 31
December & a January
2003 Cape to Rio Race Royal Cape Yacht Club 11 January 2003
NNYU Interclub Challenger –
Leg 4 Glendee Yacht Club 15 & 16
March 2003
IRC KZN Champs
(Announcement) Zululand Yacht
Club 21
to 23 March 2003
Western Province Dinghy
Champs Saldahana Bay 18 to 21
April 2003
The Classifieds has been updated on the Smooth Sailing web site. Take a surf past to see what is for sale or sought after in the wanted column. To place an ad, e-mail the details to hethcot@iafrica.com.
One trailer
with box
New mast, sails
and standing rigging
R17 000-00 ONCO
Contact: Tim
Cell: 083 570
0222
Fireball Dinghy
Complete, in good
condition & on road trailer
Preferably fiberglass
‘wide hull’
JHB or Northern OFS
Contact: Jeff Dell
Cell: 082 707 7166
E-Mail: jeffm_d@hotmail.com
Andrew Heathcote
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 783 8805
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Please note that the views
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