Smooth Sailing
Sailing
News By A Sailor For Sailors!
In
Association with:
McCarthy
Toyota Inhaca Island Race
Doping
Regulations & Drug Testing
Your Weekend
Weather according to the South African Weather Service is going to be as follows:
Durban & Richard’s
Bay: Saturday will be 29
degrees and partly cloudy with a 20% chance of evening thundershowers. The wind
will be a moderate northeasterly but will become a moderate southwesterly in
the evening. Sunday will be 27 degrees and cloudy with rain throughout the day
and a fresh southerly wind blowing.
Midmar: Saturday will be 26 degrees and partly
cloudy with a 20% chance of afternoon and evening thundershowers. The wind will
be a light northwesterly. Overnight the temperature will drop as low as ten
degrees. Sunday will be 22 degrees and cloudy with persistent drizzle and a 30%
chance of afternoon thundershowers. The wind will be a light southerly.
Vaal Dam: Saturday will be 25 degrees and partly
cloudy with a light northwesterly wind in the morning becoming stronger
throughout the day. Sunday will be 26 degrees and partly cloudy with a 20%
chance of thunderstorms. The wind will be a light northwesterly.
Cape Town: Saturday will be 18 degrees and cloudy
with a 90% chance of rain throughout the day. The wind will be a fresh
southwesterly. Sunday will be 21 degrees and fine with a fresh southeasterly
wind blowing.
While the weekend weather outlook might
now be that great for those of us sitting at home there is a large group of
sailors, most of them in Richard’s Bay at the moment, who are overjoyed at the
prevailing pattern. The reason they are so happy is that this evening and tomorrow
morning there will be a mass exodus of yachts leaving Richard’s Bay, heading
north for the McCarthy
Toyota Inhaca Island Easter Race and a few days of westerly or southwesterly wind is exactly what
they want. Looking at the forecast most yachts should make it up to the island
in fairly short time, I would imagine by Monday morning at the latest. So while
we are all slaving away at work next week these guys are going to be enjoying
the island life. The race itself starts this time next week, on Friday morning
in fact. 16 Boats will be taking part in the race with the fleet looking very
competitive. In fact, there are too many good boats in the racing division to
pick a clear winner. In the serious racing division, IRC, the favourite must be
Robbie Dove on Kindred Spirit, mostly because his track record in recent years
has been outstanding, winning the last Inhaca Race and the last two Vasco
Races. I think that Harry Ellen’s Simonis 35, Ciao Bella could be the dark
horse here. The boat is fairly new to the crew and they haven’t done much ocean
racing in recent years but they are all seriously good sailors. I think we will
install them as second favourites after Kindred Spirit. Line honours should go
to one of the fast 42’s, Prodigy or Adios, more likely Prodigy although a dark
horse here could be the Dragonfly cat. All round it looks like an interesting
race. We will bring you the full results and a report on how it went in next
weeks Smooth Sailing.
The Sharks are back in action this weekend when they take on the Waikato
Chiefs in New Zealand. This is the first overseas game of the series for the
Sharks who have shown mixed form so far. The Chiefs are not the best of sides
and are currently lying 11th on the Super 12 log. Basically, if the
Sharks can’t beat them I don’t think we can hope to win any of the games on
this tour. The game will be televised live on Supersport and kicks off at 07:15
so you might have to get out of bed a little early for a Saturday morning to
catch this one.
Tomorrow, Saturday, sees the PYC’s Bar Anniversary Mug being sailed in Durban. This is another of the popular
pursuit races that usually attracts a very diverse entry including a good
number of Hobies and a few other out of the ordinary boats. Please remember
that to make sure that this event runs smoothly you need to get and entry in
nice and early, before 12:00 in fact, in order that the start times can be
allocated. These will be posted on the club notice board at around 13:00.
While
there is no official keeler sailing this weekend that doesn’t mean that there
is no reason to go down to your yacht club. In fact the Royal Natal Yacht Club has several good reasons for you
to come down and enjoy a good day away from out. For starters the bar will be
open, now that’s always something that interests yachties whether they have
been sailing or not. Nothing like having a few cold beers and telling war
stories. If the weather is not so great, and there is half a chance that it
might not be, the best bet will be a nice long lunch in the Britannia Room. The
Sunday buffet will be on offer and it is well worth your while tucking into. MY
recommendation though, don’t have breakfast before hand, you won’t need it! If
the weather is good, the Brittania Room buffet will still be on but your
options are also expanded to include the braai on the lawns with live music for
the afternoon. This week Rob Le Veu will be playing on the verandah. Sounds
like the perfect way to while away a Sunday afternoon to me!
As weekend sailors most of us don’t pay much attention to Doping Regulations in our sport. Truth be told I am sure that
most sailors aren’t even aware that we have them. Nonetheless we do and fairly
regular testing is carried out. This is not something that has been
particularly common in the past but is becoming more so as time goes by.
Testing has been carried out at big regattas in the last year or so including
last years Lipton Cup and this year’s Laser Nationals. I am told that testing
will almost certainly be carried out during this years Lipton Cup regatta and
possibly during the NCS Regatta too. Testing is done on a random basis and is
not limited to those sailors at the front of any particular fleet. As sailors
you need to be aware that banned substances are not all things that are bought
from shady characters down dark alleys, they come in all shapes and forms,
often prescription or over the counter medication. While you intention may not
be to cheat or contravene any regulations, you may inadvertently be doing so
without even knowing. My advice to sailors taking part not just in the regattas
mentioned above but in all competitive sailing events is to have a chat with
your GP or Pharmacist. They will be able to point you in the right direction
and make sure that you are not taking anything that will land you in hot water
when the test results come out. Doping transgressions are a serious thing, just
ask Shame Warne! Make sure you don’t fall foul of the law.
The biggest event of the weekend in KZN is the 2003 KZN RC Laser Champs which are taking place at the Durban
Radio Boat Club tomorrow and Sunday. With a whole lot of new boats having been
sold recently a huge fleet is expected. 34 Boats is the record for the class
and there is a good indication this that this number could be exceeded for this
regatta. As well as the KZN sailors there will be two Guateng owners making a
first appearance at the regatta, Carl Meyer and Mervin McLuckie. Both are part
of the fast growing Gauteng fleet and are coming to test their skills against
the well-practiced local sailors. For more information on the RC Laser class or
this weekends regatta visit www.rclaser.co.za.
Out of one of the junior e-mail updates that went around this
week I saw plans for a very interesting sailing exercise. Actually it’s more of
an adventure holiday with a little bit of sailing thrown in but it sounds great
nonetheless. The details of the proposed trip to the Katse Dam in Lesotho to do some Oppi Sailing are as follows:
“The plan is to put together a trip to Katse
Dam in Lesotho. This will be an adventure of note. I plan to put the first
yachts (Oppies) on the highest dam in Southern Africa on the shortest day of
the year! June the 22nd is the Winter Solstice and thus will also be the
coldest day of the year!! Expect snow, old brown and loads of fun. I am aiming
at booking two safari type Unimogs depending on numbers and plan to be up Sani
Pass the night of the 20th, go through to Katse on Saturday 21st and book into
Molumong Lodge for the night on the way home. It's the weekend before school
holidays. The vaalies go on holiday that weekend too and maybe we could invite
them to join us from the Freestate Oxbow side? The SA border post closes at
16h00 and valid passports are required. We'll probably take up a limited
no of boats (09rs) take photos and scoot. Let me know if you're interested and
we can put it together! They tell me the fishing is good - yellow fish! Oh, and
if anybody can think of someone who might give us, KZNOCA, some
sponsorship as I hope to put the pics in the paper, let me know and I'll
follow it up.”
If you think
that this adventure sounds interesting and would like to know more about it
contact Rob Walker on 083 392 8062 or at rswalker@mweb.co.za.
The NOR for the Orion Vasco Da Gama Race 2003 has now been released and has been posted
on the Smooth Sailing Notices of Race web page. Those of you visiting the web
site in the next while will notice that we have not only changed the look a
little to help with faster download time but we have also added a dedicated
Vasco page. Here you will find all the details of the race, everything you will
need to know from the report and results from last years race to the NOR and
all the other documentation you will need. Also launched this week was the new
Vasco Race web site, which you will find at www.vascodagama.co.za. This web site will be carry very
detailed information as time goes by including individual profiles of the boats
as their entries come in and other vital information. In the mean time make
sure that you get your copy of the NOR for this not to be missed event. The
last two Vasco Races have been absolutely fantastic and this year’s should be
no exception.
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 |
|
Various
KZN Clubs |
December
2002 to July 2003 |
|
|
Royal
Natal & Point Yacht Clubs |
March to
May 2003 |
|
|
Durban
Radio Boat Club |
12 &
13 April |
|
|
Saldahana
Bay |
18 to 21
April |
|
|
Inhaca
Island to Richard’s Bay |
18 April |
|
|
PYC
Beach Site |
18 to 21
April 2003 |
|
|
Henley
Midmar Yacht Club |
26 to 28
April |
|
|
Witbank
Yacht & Aquatic Club |
26 to 28
April |
|
|
East London Yacht Club |
26 to 30 April |
|
|
Henley
Midmar Yacht Club |
3 May |
|
|
Durban
Radio Boat Club |
11 May |
|
|
Royal Cape Yacht Club |
16 to 18 May |
|
|
Zululand
Yacht Club |
14 to 16
June |
|
|
Point
Yacht Club |
14 to 16
June |
|
|
Point Yacht Club |
28 June to 4 July |
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.
FOR SALE
"L CID"
A good clean and fast boat.
Plenty of sails, 5 hp mercury motor.
Currently lying Richards Bay
Ready for Lipton in Durban
Phone before I change my mind!
R65 000-00 neg.
Cell: 083 303 9351
Office : 035-751 1416
E-Mail: wadeciv@iafrica.com
Sail No. 1997
DuToit Hull
Multiple Nationals Winner & Current
National Champion
Excellent condition
Seriously fast boat!
Contact: Jof Heathcote
Cell: 083 714 3238
E-Mail: hethcot@iafrica.com
“JACK THE
LADD”
A high
performance racing boat with a large cockpit
Boat is on
trailer in Cape Town
Lightweight racing
construction
Optimised
keel for heavy winds
Complete with
outboard 6 Hp Mariner and remote tank
No. 1, No. 2
No. 3 and storm Jib
Mainsail
Large light
wind spinnaker
Heavy weather
spinnaker
Depth and
speed instruments
Duall
compasses
Contact:
Peter Hill
Cell: 083 384
5924
E-mail: hillbilly@global.co.za
Including spinaker
On new road trailer
All in reasonable
condition
Offers on R2 500.00
Contact: Mark Spooner
Cell: 082 558 6032
E-mail: spooner@intekom.co.za
WANTED
Suitable for
L36
Contact: Jeff
Montjoie
Phone:
011-823 2402
E-mail: jmo@clearspan.co.za
Contact:
Richard Barron
E-Mail: Richard@creatinginsight.co.za
Andrew Heathcote
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 783 8805
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