Smooth Sailing
Sailing
News By A Sailor For Sailors!
In
Association with:
The Official Web Site of the 2003 Lipton Cup
Lipton Cup
Manex Marine Give-Away
Saturday saw a fleet of four boats taking part in the Sangoma Race
from Durban to Richard’s Bay. All were being delivered to Richard’s Bay for
next weekend’s IRC KZN Champs. While four boats is not exactly a huge fleet it
is a long time since a Sangoma Race has actually happened which is a good thing
in itself. The other good thing is that it was actually a really pleasant sail,
proving just how good racing on this coastline can be if you pick the weather
correctly. Out on the start line at 11:00 there was a fairly blustery 20 or so
knots of wind blowing however the start signal seemed to chase most of this
away with the breeze quickly moderating to a gentle ten or twelve knots. With
spinnakers up the fleet made leisurely but steady progress up the coast. The
south westerly wind hung around until just before sunset when it started to die
and then turned very rapidly to land breeze shortly after dark. This left the
fleet on a tight reach up the coast for much of the second half of the passage.
Those closer inshore probably benefited more from the land breeze than those
out to sea and were also able to keep their spinnakers up for longer in the
final miles into Richard’s Bay. First to cross the line was Prodigy, Chris
Frost’s Fast 42. She finished at 23:26 and was followed 25 minutes later by
Harry Ellens on the Simonis 35 Ciao Bella. Next in a further 50 minutes later
was the L34 Close Again with the Leo Kroone’s Skitso, also a Fast 42 crossing
the line at 00:56. At the time of writing neither Skitso nor Close Again had
received their IRC Ratings and it was generally agreed that the corrected time
results would only be calculated later in the week when these become available.
Once safely on the moorings it was off to the extremely hospitable Zululand
Yacht Club where the bar stayed open until sometime after four in the
morning.
The Sangoma race fleet, myself included, had to make do with
the radio commentary of the Springboks
first test of the year against Sctoland. The general consensus after the race
was that we were all better off for not having to watch what was by all
accounts a very unconvincing performance by our team. I never thought it was
possible to get as angry listening in on the radio as one does when actually
watching the performance live or on television but I now know you can. Plenty
has been said in the press already this week but fortunately the team
management are sticking to their guns and it doesn’t look like there will be
any significant changes to the team for this coming weekend’s second test. With
any luck though there will be a significant change in the teams performance. We
need to give the Scots a good thrashing in order to set ourselves up well for
the forthcoming Tri-Nations.
Friday nights Sailing KZN AGM was well attended and went off smoothly.
Like all good meetings it was over in less than an hour with the bar profit
benefiting the most from this! There were no major changes, in fact no changes
at all to the Sailing KZN executive, which is as follows for the coming year:
Chairman: Kieron Moore
Treasurer: Jimmy
Melville
Oceanic: Dave Claxton
Racing: Dave Rushton
Members: Mark Cawdron and Rob Barker
Chris Frost will continue to serve on the Oceanic Committee.
Manex
Marine have
come on board with Smooth
Sailing’s 2003 Lipton Cup web site and will be running two substantial product
give-aways off the web site. One product give-away will be for the general
public and the other for competitors in the regatta. Both the general public
and competitors will have to enter the competition on line. Full competition
details will be posted on the web site in the next couple of days so keep an
eye on the web site for this. Both prizes are well worth having so make sure
that you don’t miss out!
This coming weekend sees the first warm-up
event for the 2003 Lipton Cup Regatta taking place in Durban when the KZN L26 Champs are sailed. The regatta takes place on
Saturday, Sunday and Monday and as well as the KZN fleet expect to see a good
turnout of Cape and Gauteng boats out on the water.
While the L26 sailors are battling it out
in Durban the battling it out in Durban the IRC
fleet will be competing for their KZN Champs in
Richard’s Bay. This also should be an interesting regatta, perhaps more so than
the L26 event as there I little indication of who should be good and who not in
this one. The fleet will be a varied one with ten to twelve boats expected on
the start line. These range from the Fast 42’s at one end to a Muira at the
other with a good few in between.
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 |
|
|
Zululand Yacht Club |
14 to 16 June |
|
|
Point Yacht Club |
14 to 16 June |
|
|
Albert Falls Yacht Club |
14 to 16 June |
|
|
Point Yacht Club |
28 June to 4 July |
|
|
Durban Offshore Challenge Incorporation the Mirror
& Laser Youth KZN Champs |
Point Yacht Club |
28 June to 4 July |
|
Point Yacht Club |
4 to 11 July |
|
|
UCT Yacht Club, Zeekoeivlei |
2 & 3 August |
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
Great condition
2 Sails, Stainless steel dolly
Contact: Richard Parker
Home: 031-564 5246
Cell: 072 2444 548
Andrew Heathcote
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 783 8805
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