Smooth Sailing
Sailing
News By A Sailor For Sailors!
In
Association with:
The Official Web Site of the 2003 Lipton Cup
Greg
Barker’s 49er Europeans Report
This
Weekend At Royal Natal Yacht Club
The
Sailing KZN Colours Dinner has had to be postponed due
to a clash in dates with the Northvaal Keeler Champs. We will let you know just
as soon as the new date is announced.
The 29er Nationals are taking place in Durban this weekend. The regatta starts at
midday today and ends on Sunday. If you want to see some of the most exciting
dinghy racing available pop down to the harbour sometime this weekend and check
it out. Racing will be taking place in the bay so should be easily visible from
any number of viewpoints! Ten of these exciting little skiffs are expected for
this regatta, which should make for a nice little fleet and some close racing.
We will bring you all the results on Monday.
The Currie Cup gets underway this evening
with Smooth Sailing’s favourite team, the Sharks, in action against the Eagles at the ABSA Stadium in Durban. After
the doom and gloom of last weeks Bok performance against the All Black
hopefully there will be something to smile about later this evening. Kick-off
is at 19:10 and the game will be televised live on Supersport 1.
It has been a tough week on the water for the South
African team competing at the 2003 ISAF Youth World Championships that end in Madeira, Portugal on Saturday. Ten races
have been sailed in all the classes in which they are competing with mixed
results all round. Certainly none of them have done badly. Both Megan Clayton and Ricky and Brennan
Robinson have managed top ten results during the week, which is promising and
all look competitive in the middle part of the fleet. The South African team
positions after ten races are as follows:
|
Laser Boys |
Richard Hutton-Squire |
23rd (33 Entries) |
|
Laser Girls |
Megan Clayton |
18th (24 Entries) |
|
420 Boys |
Ricky & Brennan Robinson |
18th (26 Entries) |
The regatta has a really
great web site at http://www.isafyouthworld2003.com/. It is well worth taking a surf past this one if you
have some time. It is a quick easy site to use with some interesting features
including two web cams and a chat room as well as quick downloading results and
pictures.
The
Hobie 14 Worlds are taking place in Germany at the moment as part of
the Travemunder Woche Regatta. There are 67 entries in this Hobie 14 class
including Philip Du Toit from South Africa. Philip is flying the SA flag high
and is lying in 5th place after 5 races. He started well with a 2nd
in race one and a 3rd in race three but was caught short in the
fifth race when he was late for the start, along with several other boats, when
the wind died between races. South Africa has a good track record in the Hobie
class and it is good to see it being continued at this regatta. The regatta
ends on Saturday and you can follow event at http://www.travemuender-woche.net/start.phtml.
Greg
Barker sent us the following report on the 49er European Championships, which took place in Laredo, Spain last week and his international
campaign in general:
“The
49er European Championships and the 29er World Championships were held in
Laredo, Northern Spain from 12-19 July. My team mate and I decided against the
long drive and organised to have the boat and gear towed alongside 11 other
British 49ers in a pantechnicon of two trailers. The advantage of flying in was
that we arrived at the regatta venue with a few days for preparation, including
some good sailing practice.
Laredo proved to
be an excellent sailing venue. Launching took place from the lagoon from where
we would sail out to sea via the river mouth to either Alpha or Bravo race area.
The 29er fleet were sailed further offshore on a separate course. For the
qualification series, the 49er fleet of 95 boats was initially divided into 4
fleets of approximately equal strength.
Day
1 of racing brought a moderate onshore sea breeze of about 10 knots. We were
drawn in the red group sailing on Alpha course located near to the Yacht Club
beach adjacent to the lagoon mouth. The tide played an important role in the
racing, not only for laylines and starts, but also in shallow areas of the course
where encountering a wave train could seriously ruin your day. The left hand
side of the course was favoured on the beats with a wind bend and increased
pressure under the cliffs of the river mouth. We had 3 steady races (positions
of 16, 15, 14) with no major mistakes but felt that we had a tough draw and
looked forward to the next series of racing after regrouping.
Day
2 of qualification saw strong, gusty offshore winds of 15-25 knots moderating
later in the day. Having been regrouped into blue, we had excellent starts at
the pin end and selected the correct side of the beats to get into some really
good positions. Positions of 14, 11 and 9 proved good enough to get us into the
Silver group after qualification (fleet divided into gold fleet of 25, silver
fleet of 35 and bronze fleet of 35). Although we were pleased to have made the
cut in such a competitive fleet, we had left plenty of points out on the race
course with a capsize in the final race and some gear problems with our
spinnaker cleat in the first couple of races.
Day
3 of racing proved expensive for us (positions of DNF, DNC and 28). On a day
with onshore breeze of 15-20 knots and big waves offshore on Bravo course, we
had a capsize during an over ambitious gybe hoist at the weather mark, resulting
in broken battens and a torn mainsail. As a consequence, we collected maximum
points for the first 2 races of the day. Having just made it back to the race
area for the final race of the day, we sailed steadily until the final
downwind, when we had a pitchpole and lost several positions. The standard of
racing in the Silver fleet in these conditions was high. Unlike in the bronze
fleet, it is clearly not good enough to simply stay upright and achieve good
positions by overtaking those who capsize.
Day
4 of racing for the Silver Fleet was a light wind day. With 35 boats on a short
start line there was no room for manoeuvre and advisable to reserve your place
on the line at least 2 minutes before the gun. In the first couple of races the
left hand side of the beat was clearly favoured so keeping clear air on
starboard tack after the start was really important. After a couple of
extremely sub-optimal starts, we found ourselves towards the back of the pack
at the windward mark, but fought back in both races to get 24 and 26. In the
final race we found good lanes of clear air on the first beat and a couple of
good lifts to reach the weather mark in the top 15, and showed some good speed
to overtake to finish 11. After 2 discards this left us in a final position of
56, leaving several professional teams behind us.
The
European Championships proved to be a good test of boathandling, strategical
and tactical ability and saw 12 good races sailed in a variety of wind, sea
state and tidal conditions. I was pleased with our performance in the
qualification series, as we had made a conscious effort to take a more
aggressive approach to qualification. It was good to make the grade for the
silver fleet. The DNC day once again proved the importance of flawless boathandling
and gear reliability. Apart from that day we had a consistent series with some
good starts (whilst avoiding the ever-present black flags) and no disaster
races.
Most
importantly, the last couple of years of 49er racing have been a major learning
curve for the team. We have gone from being backmarkers in the UK fleet
(consisting of about 40 active teams) to regularly finishing in the top 5 at UK
circuit events. At an international level, our performance has improved as our
experience of these events has grown. Having spent most of my dinghy sailing
life as a singlehander, the team aspect of the campaign has been challenging
but also rewarding. We have reached the stage where a further leap in
performance will require us to sail professionally, as I believe that we are
doing as much as possible on an amateur basis at the moment.
The
campaign is now winding down and we will probably sell both boats in the near
future. Below is a summary of our international results to date in 2003:
Hyeres Olympic Classes Regatta:36
(of 53) Silver Fleet
Spa Olympic Classes Regatta: 39 (of 55) Silver Fleet
Kiel Week for Olympic Classes: 56 (of 78) Bronze
Fleet
European
49er Championships: 56 (of 94) Silver Fleet
Our qualification for the World Championships is currently hanging in the balance. In the meantime, I will be competing in the 9er International Open in Plymouth with my Knysna Yacht Club teammate, Mark Gale, because my regular front man is starting a time-consuming new job in neurosurgery on Monday. I plan to return to Cape Town next year to study my MBA, but look forward to the possibility of more competitive sailing at an international level in the forthcoming years.”
This
month’s Royal Natal Yacht
Club Members Draw takes place
tonight in the Brittania Room at 18:00. Everyone is invited, even club members
who don’t have tickets! Not having a ticket is something that can be rectified
when you are there anyway and is just another reason to pop along. For those of
you with tickets, remember that you have to be there to win the bonus
prize! Don't forget the Sunday Carvery
@ R 51.00 per head and the Sunday braai @ R 34.00 a braai pack. There
will be entertainment as usual, this Sunday.
For more information on these events or anything to do with the RNYC
contact Niccola on 031-301 5425.
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 |
|
Point Yacht Club |
25 to 27 July |
|
|
UCT Yacht Club, Zeekoeivlei |
2 & 3 August |
|
|
Denysville Aquatic Club |
8, 9 & 10 August |
|
|
Albert Falls Yacht Club |
9 & 10 August |
|
|
Pretoria Sailing Club |
9 & 10 August |
|
|
Transvaal Catamaran Club |
23 & 24 August |
|
|
Hout Bay Yacht Club |
11 to 14 September |
|
|
RCYC & HBYC |
11 September |
|
|
HBYC & FBYC |
12 September |
|
|
2003 Nationals for 36" Shipmate, IOM and RM
Class Radio Yachts |
Henley Midmar Yacht Club |
20 to 27 September |
|
RNYC Windhoek Regatta |
Royal Natal Yacht Club |
24 to 28 Septembet |
|
Henley Midmar Yacht Club |
3 to 5 October |
|
|
Chelmsford Boating Club |
4 & 5 October |
|
|
Various Clubs |
10 to 12 October |
|
|
Nautical Nomads Society |
25 & 26 October |
|
|
Albert Falls Yacht Club |
25 & 26 October |
|
|
Hout Bay Yacht Club |
15 & 16 November |
|
|
FBYC & HBYC |
22 November |
|
|
False Bay to St Helena Island |
29 November 2003 |
|
|
Spionkop Boating Club |
6 & 7 December |
|
|
Glendee Yacht Club |
1 & 2 February 2004 |
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
THETA 27 "Blanc De Noir"
Brand new main and genoa - great shape
Sail #90
R60 000-00
Contact: Russell Campbell
Cell: 0836754454
E-mail: russell.campbell@liberty.co.za
Telana -
31ft, cruising Miura.
Competed the
1996 Cape to Rio Race.
Moored at the
Royal Cape Yacht Club
In excellent
condition.
Features
include:
Beach &
teak interior; anti-fouling treatment; built-in fridge &
loo; colour TV;CD shuttle; hot and cold pressurised
water; de-salinator; chart nav; radar; SSB;
auto-helm instruments; gas stove and braai; 18hrse.pwr. Volvo Penta
engine; rounded deck; Doyle sails; Luma self-tailing
winches(240's;230's; 216's);
mast by Spar Craft with double-spreader rig and life raft.
Contact Feona
Boock
Cell: 083 346
6977
E-mail: boocck@mweb.co.za
Boat in reasonable
condition
With spinnaker main
and jib.
Photos available on
request
R750.00
Contact: Mark Spooner
Cell: 082 558 6032
In Pietermaritzburg
WANTED
For 30 foot yacht
Contact: Ian Williams
Cell: 082 655 0874
E-mail: nest@yebo.co.za
Andrew Heathcote
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 783 8805
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