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News By A Sailor For Sailors!
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A problem with the
mailing list has meant that some subscribers have not got the last couple of
issues of Smooth Sailing. We think that we have got the problem sorted out now
so hopefully everyone that should be getting Smooth Sailing will be reading
this. Today’s newsletter is however a fairly long one as I have included a heap
of information that was in the last couple of issues but that I didn’t want
anyone to miss out on.
Something that many of
you may have missed out on was a thought-provoking Editorial that we ran in
issue number 266 on the 27th of July. For those of you who didn’t
get that issue and want to see what we are on about visit the Editorial page on the Smooth Sailing web site.
“Into The Eye
of The Storm” Screening
29er
Introduction Training Weekends
Cruiser
Event Durban To Richard’s Bay
Orion
Vasco Da Gama Race Lost Property
505
Worlds
When I offered to make copies of the video “Into the Eye of the Storm” I didn’t expect quite the response that I got. It
turns out that my timing wasn’t that great either as I made the offer right
before the start of the busiest period of sailing of the year! I have nearly a
hundred names on my list of people who want copies of the video. For those of
you in Durban we are going to screen the video this coming Friday evening, the
8th of August, at the Point Yacht Club in Charlie’s Bar. The video
will start at 18:00 although. In addition to a great video there will also be
cheap beer and hot snacks on offer as well as loads of yachties to chat with.
It should be a god evening! For those of you outside Durban who have asked for
copies of the video, I will get these to you in the mail early next week.
Anyone else who wants a copy of the video should drop me an e-mail at hethcot@iafrica.com and I will add you to the list. Please be prepared
to pick up the cost of postage and copying, which I have had to organise
commercially as the number of copies was too great to do at home! Otherwise see
you on Friday evening at 18:00 in Charlie’s Bar!
This weekend was a quiet one sailing wise but a busy one for other
sports. It could well have been better to be out sailing rather than watching
the Springboks dismal efforts against the Aussies on Saturday. I
guess this is just one of those times when it is tough being a Bok supporter.
All we can do is keep on hoping that things will improve during the week and
that there will be an improved performance against the high flying All Blacks
this coming weekend. Saturday’s game takes place in New Zealand with the
kick-off at 09:00 SA time. It will of course be televised which gives you the easy
option of turning off should it all get too bad! For those of you who like
watching guaranteed winners only, the Sharks have been a good thing lately.
Hopefully that run of form continues!
The Sailing KZN Colours Dinner
has been rescheduled for Friday the 12th of September. The dinner
will take place at the Point Yacht Club with tickets available at a cost of
R90-00 per person. Advance booking is essential and can be done by contacting
Sandy at Sailing KZN on 031-301 3078. This is the first time in a number of
years that Sailing KZN Colours have been awarded and with a fairly long list of
recipients it promises to be a festive evening. The Colours Dinner will become
an annual event and we will shortly be updating the Sailing KZN web site with
the points standings so you can keep track of your own progress towards getting
KZN colours.
The 29er Class will be
holding a couple of events at Midmar over two weekends in August. On the
weekend of the 16th and 17th they will be having an Introduction Weekend. Starting from 13:30 on Saturday the 16th
and 11:00 on Sunday the 17th, they are offering the chance for
anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to sail a 29er to go for a test sail.
This is an opportunity not to be missed. For those of you who haven’t already had
a chance to sail one of these exciting little boats make a plan to get yourself
there for this one. The following weekend will be a Training Weekend with the aim of improving the skills level of those
already in the class. This will involve on and off the water coaching and
offers a great opportunity for those sailing the boats to concentrate on
improving their boat handling and speed skills rather than trying to get around
the race track ahead of the next boat. Smooth Sailing readers and those of you
who know me will know that I am very pro the 29er. I think it is an awesome
little boat. The boat performs amazingly, giving the feeling that you are
sailing at incredible speeds, which you actually are! It is simple and easy to
sail and most of all cheap. The perception seems to be that these boats cost a
fortune but the reality is that they do not. There are enough of them out there
on the second hand market that they can be bought relatively cheaply,
especially if you divide the cost between two of you. Being as simply as they
are there is relatively little that needs to be done to get one on the pace and
not a whole heap to spend on ropes and gadgets. Around the world dinghy sailing
is moving more and more in the skiff direction. The 29er provides the opportunity
to learn the most essential skiff skills in a small and easy to sail package.
For more information on the 29er or either of the weekends mentioned above
contact Rob Tarboton at rbt@sai.co.za or on 083 628 1451.
For cruising sailors a Durban to Richard’s Bay Trip is being organised for the day that has the best
westerly wind between the 12th and 16th of August. As
always its weather dependent and the cruise will only take place if the weather
is right. This event is being aimed at the smaller cruising yachts, mostly
those under 30 foot although all others are definitely welcome. Roy Cook is the
man organising this one and for more details on it please contact him on 083
256 0231.
After the recent Orion Vasco Da Gama Race a number of sails and other personal items have been left at the
Royal Natal Yacht Club in Durban. All of this Lost or Unclaimed Property is at present lying in the RNYC’s Foredeck Bar however won’t
remain there indefinitely. If you have any missing kit after this event please
pop by the RNYC in the next while and claim whatever is yours before it is
disposed of. Those of you not in Durban who may have items amongst this lot can
arrange to have it put to one side by contacting Steve Coxen at the RNYC on
031-301 5425.
The Laser European Championships finished in Split, Croatia last weekend with some new faces
on the podium. Several of the more regular Laser winners seemed to struggle at
this event with a Slovakian, Vasilij Zbogar, and a Croatian, Mate Arapov,
occupying the top two places. South African Gareth Blankenburg had a mixed
regatta ending in 9th place. He was fairly consistent finishing 4th
or 5th in most of his races but slipped occasionally which didn’t
help his cause. While the Europeans is a pretty serious regatta most wont be
overly worried about their performance in this one. Most sailors will be
building up to the ISAF World Championships to be held in September in Spain so
their result here wont have been as important as their performance and the
steps forward they feel they have taken. Whatever the case Gareth’s 9th
is another very good result although I am sure that he would have liked to have
been higher up the fleet. For the full
results visit the event web site at http://www.jk-mornar.hr/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=83&op=page&SubMenu=. The top positions after 5 races are as
follows:
|
1st
|
Vasilij
Zbogar |
SLO |
28
Points |
|
2nd
|
Mate
Arapov |
CRO |
30 |
|
3rd
|
Michael
Blackburn |
AUS |
34 |
|
9th
|
Gareth
Blankenburg |
RSA |
54 |
At the 505 Worlds ended in Malmo, Sweden on Friday last week. By all accounts this was another superb 505
regatta with some great racing throughout the fleet. While you do find some
professionals sailing in this class they are for the most part half pro’s,
being sail makers or the like. For the most part it is an amateur class but on
sailed by some of the best sailors in the world. Those of you who have sailed
505’s will know that they are the most outstanding boats and racing in a big
fleet of them is just awesome. Many of the sailors who take part in this
regatta have regular 9 to 5 jobs and use their annual leave to travel and
compete. It was not therefore surprising to hear that one of the biggest
debates at this regatta was whether to have a lay day in future events or not
as it takes up precious leave time. It seems that those who like to see a bit
of the country they are in prevailed and future 505 worlds will continue to
have a break in the middle although in recent times they have changed their
rules to allow two instead of just one race per day. Winning a 505 worlds
require a unique combination of sailing and boat preparation skills. During the
regatta I was interested to read about the differences in set-up and layout
between the USA fleet and the Germans.
Germany had the largest number of entries at this regatta and has one of
the strongest fleets in the world. Their results at this event prove that. 505
sailing in SA, in particular in Gauteng, is fairly strong at the moment with a
good fleet sailing. Four Gauteng teams, and one from Zimbabwe, took part in
this years worlds so there should at least be an injection of information and
ideas from the international fleet into our local one. For a detailed account
of the regatta including the full results visit the event web site at http://mss.m.se/vm505%202003.htm. To view a selection of pictures
from the regatta visit http://www.int505.org/2003worlds/ElizabethThompsonIMG.htm. The top three and the South African positions after 9 races are as
follows:
|
1st |
Wolfgang
Hunger & Holger Jess |
GER |
12 Points |
|
2nd |
Krister
Bergstrom & Johan Barne |
SWE |
23 |
|
3rd |
Howard
Hamlin & Peter Alarie |
USA |
30 |
|
30th |
Patrick
McCosh & Dennis Lapham |
ZIM |
202 |
|
59th |
Hans
Rogotski & Peter Roos |
RSA |
346 |
|
66th |
Rudolph
Holm & Leon Prinsloo |
RSA |
406 |
|
70th |
Tony
Murray & Kobus Holtzhausen |
RSA |
436 |
|
72nd |
Albrecht
Holm & Warwick Han |
RSA |
446 |
At
the Optimist World
Championships, ended in Las Palmas,
Gran Canaria, Spain, last weekend. 15 races were sailed in the regatta with a
break in the middle for the team-racing event. The South African team certainly
seemed to fair better in the second half of the regatta making some
considerable improvements in their overall positions. With 221 boats taking
part in the regatta this was without doubt the biggest event that most of these
youngsters will ever have taken part in. All races were sailed in smaller
fleets of around 75 boats each but even then these would have been the same
size or bigger than the biggest fleets encountered at home. Despite some good
effort having been put into the teams preparation for this regatta we didn’t
really achieve the kind of results that most people would have expected. South
African teams never really have done well at the Oppi worlds though. I think
that this is simply because we are not as professional in our approach to the
sport at junior level as some other countries are. This is not necessarily a
bad thing though as there is a fine line between being competitive and over
pressuring these young sailors. On Friday I hope to bring you some comments
from some of the sailors who took part in the regatta. I am pretty sure that what we will hear from
most is that they learnt a great deal at this event and that really is the most
important thing. Our top sailors at this regatta, Rudy McNeil, still has
another two years in the Optimist class and could potentially compete in
another two worlds championships. There is a lot of value in experience at this
level so there is the potential for some good results from him in the
future. For the latest news and results
from the regatta visit http://www.optiworld.org/ioda-news.html. The top three and the South
African positions after 15 races are as follows:
|
1st
|
Matika
Filip |
CRO |
44 |
|
2nd |
Jesse
Kirkland |
BER |
65 |
|
3rd
|
Sebastian
Peri Brusa |
ARG |
69 |
|
140th
|
Rudy
McNeil |
RSA |
521 |
|
151st
|
Aaron
Larkens |
RSA |
541 |
|
171st
|
Sam
Waterson |
RSA |
610 |
|
174th |
Brett
Stirk |
RSA |
628 |
|
178th
|
Alexander
McClarty |
RSA |
635 |
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 |
|
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
PSI Hull
Sail # 80700
In good condition
With dolly and boat cover
Cell: 082 459
5497
E-Mail: iti05603@mweb.co.za
Fireball
R6 000-00
In good condition
Roadworthy trailer
Contact: Jaco Kornelius
E-mail: jaco@softsim.co.za
Flash
Optimist
-- No Limits
! --
Sail No RSA
1144
White with
dark blue trim.
Immaculate
condition, complete and ready to sail .
Includes
galvanised dolly, spare sails, spare bouyancy bags,
McSon
original foils,spare rudder blade and top cover.
R 6 000-00
Contact:
Victor Hassan
Cell: 082 654
6919
E-mail: woodwork@absamail.co.za
WANTED
In good
condition
Contact:
Stewart Hewitt at Hewitt Yamaha, Durban,
Phone:
031-3373759
E-mail: hyamaha@iafrica.com
Optimist or
09er
2nd
hand in good condition for beginner
Contact:
Tracey O’Sullivan
Cell: 084 514 2274
Andrew Heathcote
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 783 8805
This newsletter is
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subject matter contained herein is entirely of a yachting orientated nature or
that which may be of interest to yachtsmen.
Please note that the views
contained in this newsletter are those of the authors concerned and in no way
reflect the view or policies of any of Smooth Sailings associate clubs,
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