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News By A Sailor For Sailors!
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Something
amazing happened after my comments on Notices of Regatta getting out timeously
the other day. Not only was there a sudden flood of NOR’s in my inbox, but this
week I received an NOR six months in advance of the event. So the NOR for the
L26 KZN Champs might spend a long time on the Smooth Sailing web site but at
least there can be no excuse for anyone not knowing that the regatta is
happening and doing something as silly as planning a family braai or a wedding
on that weekend! Wouldn’t it be good if we could get all our NORs out this
early!
Royal
Natal Yacht Club Windhoek Regatta
Finn,
505, Laser & Laser Radial Photo Gallery
SAFM
Saturday Sport Interview With Marco Constant
ISAF
Sailing World Championships Overview
Former
Optimist Sailors At The ISAF Worlds
Laser
Masters World Championships
Rolex
Women Sailing World Championships
Your Weekend Weather,
according to the SA Weather
Service, should be as follows:
Durban
& Richard’s Bay: Saturday will
be 30 degrees and fine becoming partly cloudy later in the day with a 20%
chance of afternoon thunderstorms. The wind will be a moderate northeasterly.
Sunday will be 27 degrees and fine becoming partly cloudy with a 20% chance of
overnight showers. The wind will be a light southwesterly becoming a moderate
southwesterly in the afternoon.
Midmar: Saturday will be 29 degrees and fine becoming partly
cloudy later in the day with a 20% chance of afternoon and evening
thunderstorms. The wind will be a light northwesterly but a light southerly in
the afternoon. Sunday will be 26 degrees and fine becoming partly cloudy with a
20% chance of afternoon and evening showers. The wind will be a moderate
westerly but a light southerly in the afternoon.
Vaal
Dam: Saturday will be 30 degrees and
fine with a fresh northwesterly wind blowing. Sunday will be 27 degrees and
partly cloudy with a 30% chance of thunderstorms. The wind will be a light
westerly.
Cape
Town: Saturday will be 18 degrees
and cloudy with rain at times. the wind will be a strong northwesterly. Sunday
will be 18 degrees and partly cloudy with a 50% chance of morning showers. The
wind will be a moderate southerly.
In what must be the biggest turnout for this regatta
in a good few years 24 yachts entered the Royal Natal Yacht Club’s Windhoek Regatta which started with two round the cans races on
Wednesday. Of the 24 entries, 16 are sailing in the cruising class with 8 in
the racing fleet. Five of the racing fleet entries are 40 footers with another
4 in the cruising fleet. Things have changed quite a lot in the Durban sailing
scene of late. It was not so long ago that the fleet was entirely made up of
boats smaller than 30 foot but we have seen a definite upswing towards bigger
boats recently. For one thing this is a sign of the healthy state of the boat
building industry in Durban. Conditions out at sea were perfect with a light
northeasterly breeze and a gentle rolling swell allowing the two races to be sailed
in good time. Just as well the conditions were good after the opening function
the night before which included a great deal of the sponsors brew and a
schnapps promotion! The corrected time results show that some pretty close
racing took place with close finishes throughout the fleet. Those who were
disappointed with their efforts on the water on Wednesday will have to get
their thinking caps out if they want to close the gap to the leaders as the
next event is a cryptic clue challenge. This takes place in Durban Bay tomorrow
afternoon and will no doubt be followed by a big party before Saturday’s
Pursuit Race. The Windhoek Regatta ends with the famous poitjie competition on
the lawns at the Royal Natal Yacht Club on Sunday afternoon. The results after
two races in both the cruising and racing classes are as follows:
Cruising Class
|
1st
|
Chateur |
Theta |
3
Points |
|
2nd
|
Aquilla |
Trapper
28 |
3 |
|
3rd
|
Cool
Runnings |
Unknown |
7 |
Racing Class
|
1st
|
Cartoon
Deckwork |
J22 |
3
Points |
|
2nd
|
Skitzo |
Fast 42 |
5 |
|
3rd
|
Ciao
Bella |
Simonis
35 |
6 |
The Sharks are away to the Pumas tomorrow afternoon for another
game that they really should win with ease. Another five points from this game
should take them well clear at the top of the log, somewhere that they need to
stay in order to get a home final. South Africa’s most exciting back line
player, Brent Russell is back in the starting line-up for this week’s game. It
is very seldom that he is on the field without something exciting happening so
he is probably the best reason for watching the game on Saturday. The match
will be televised live on Supersport with kick-off at 15:00.
We
have posted a large gallery of images from the Finn & 505 Nationals &
Laser Northvaal Champs on the Smooth Sailing web site. Thanks to Ingrid Willcox who took the pics and passed them on
to us we have been able to post pics of all the classes in action and some of
the action itself with the odd capsize and broken mast captured by the camera.
Check them out for yourself at www.smoothsailing.co.za/finnnat03pics1.html.
This
coming Saturday, the 17th of September, on SAFM’s Saturday Sport Special Show, there will be an Interview with Marco Constant. Marco is a professional sailor who was, amongst
other things, on the Alinghi America’s Cup Sailing Team when they won the cup
in Auckland last year. Stephen Kirker conducted the interview, which will be
played on the show sometime between 15:00 and 19:00 on Saturday.
The Muira Nationals are on the go at the moment and end this weekend.
They are being sailed in False Bay as part of the False Bay Yacht Club’s Spring
Regatta. For the Muira Class results so far go to www.capewindjammers.com.
The ISAF Sailing World Championships ended in Cadiz,
Spain earlier this week with Great Britain coming out well on top of the medals
table. This has become a regular feature of Olympic Classes events and
something of which much has been written in the yachting media of late. At this
event the Brits won two golds, a silver and two bronze medals in the eleven
events sailed and have qualified the nation for places in all eleven Olympic
classes for the Athens Olympics. Much of this success is attributed to the
funding that the Royal Yachting Association gets from the British Lottery. This
enables them to channel plenty of money into their Olympic campaigners although
they don’t just hand out the cash. Good coaching and squad management it also a
key to the success of the program and having good sailors also helps. In the
49er class, there were four British teams in the top seven places, something
that says a lot for the depth of their squad. Best of the South African sailors
at the regatta was Gareth Blankenburg who ended 8th in the regatta
after a disappointing 42nd in the final race. Gareth is the only
funded SA sailor competing internationally at the moment and even then the support
that he gets from the government and NOCSA is nothing compared to what the
wealthier and more successful nations shell out. Well, not all the wealthy
nations. There is a lot of unhappiness in US yachting circles at the moment
after their poor showing at this regatta and much of it aimed at the minimal
amount of financial aid that their sailors get. While 8th is not a
result that he will by any means be happy with Gareth is still running
comfortably in the top ten and definitely a medal contender in next years
Olympics. He is also going to be the only South African sailor at the games.
Hopefully SAS and NOCSA will really get behind him now and give him all the
support that he needs in the run up to the games. The rest of the South African
team certainly didn’t set the world on fire but they did come away with
respectable results. Charles Nankin and Marc Largesse had probably the toughest
task in the Star, a tricky boat that neither has any real experience in. Duncan
Ross and Roger Hudson got together at the last moment and while Duncan has
campaigned in the Tornado before I am not sure exactly how much sailing he has
done since the boat became a twin trapeze spinnaker boat. Paul Willcox probably
struggled a bit in the breeze in the Laser fleet as this was a relatively windy
regatta. He is an extremely good sailor but by his own admission not quite big
enough to compete on level terms in the Laser when the breeze gets up. Bruce
Keen spent most of the regatta off the water ill so missed the majority of the
races. When he did sail on the last day though he achieved an 8th
and a second in the fleet he was in, results which I am sure that he will have
enjoyed. The South African’s sailing in this regatta achieved the following
results:
|
Class |
Sailors |
Entries |
Position |
|
Star |
Charles
Nankin & Marc Largesse |
83 |
57th
|
|
Tornado |
Duncan
Ross & Roger Hudson |
72 |
49th
|
|
Laser |
Gareth
Blankenburg |
178 |
8th
|
|
Laser
|
Paul
Willcox |
178 |
149th
|
|
Laser |
Bruce
Keen |
178 |
153rd
|
The following
interesting little statistic came out of the current ISAF Sailing
World Championships where the following sailors all achieved top
results. All sailed against each other in the 1991 Optimist World Championships in Greece.
Another interesting little fact is that the new Laser World Champion, Gustavo
Lima sailed the SA Optimist Nationals at Midmar in 1992 (We think!).
|
Name |
Optimist Worlds 91 Position |
Class Now |
2003 Worlds Position |
|
Gustavo Lima |
4th |
Laser |
1st |
|
Gabrio Zandona |
13th |
470 |
1st |
|
Christoffer Sunby |
14th |
49er |
2nd |
|
Chris Draper |
19th |
49er |
1st |
|
Ben Ainslie |
109th |
Finn |
1st |
The Laser Masters
World Championships start in Cadiz, Spain this coming Sunday, the 28th
of September. It is good to see such a big group of sailors heading off
overseas to enjoy this regatta. While it is a pretty social event that sailing
is still extremely serious and all will, I am sure, be trying their hardest to
get some good results. There is no shortage of talent or Laser experience there
either so it will be interesting to see how they go. The team is as follows:
Apprentice Masters: (35 – 45) Tom Plaistowe, Pete Shaw
Masters: (45 – 55) Lance Burger, Alan Foden,
Alan Keen
Grand Masters: (55 – 65) Brian Hallock
Great Grand Master: (over 65) Ken Holliday & Geoff
Myburgh
Apprentice Mistress:(?) (35-45) Mary-Ann Sharwood.
Racing starts
on Sunday, the 28th of September, and ends on Saturday the 4th
of October with Wednesday off as a midweek lay day. You can keep track of the
regatta through the event web site at http://www.laserchampionships.org/worlds03/index.htm.
The Rolex Women’s Sailing World Championships start in Annapolis in the USA tomorrow.
The regatta, which runs through until the 3rd of October has
attracted 67 teams from 7 countries and 17 US states. This year’s event is
being sailed in J22’s, which should suit the South African team who have fairly
extensive experience in this class. Dominique Provoyeur is representing South
Africa at this event with her crew comprising Penny Allison, Tanya Coetzee and
Lucy Norton. They are sailing as the Orion Sailing Team and will, I am sure, be
hoping for a good result in this tough event. The teams profile off the regatta
web site is as follows:
Team Name: Orion Sailing
Team
Sail No. RSA 1071
Skipper: Dominique Provoyeur
Home: Stellenbosch, Cape Town RSA
Crew: Tania Coetzee, Penny Alison, Lucy Norton
Penny, Tania and Dom have sailed together for the last year and a half and
finished 8th in last years ISAF Worlds in France. Dom crewed on a 470 for one
year on the European circuit, Penny was brought up on Zeekoe Vlei and has been
racing most of her life. Lucy has also been sailing/racing from a young age and
was part of this year University Sailing Team. Tania is fairly new to sailing,
but is well know for her Maui Thai!! Watch out for this team!!”
The event starts with a practice race tomorrow, Sunday,
before the really serious racing gets underway on Monday with racing taking
place every day of the week until Friday. You can keep track of the team’s
results at this regatta by logging onto the event web site at http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/rolexkeelboats/.
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 |
|
GBYC & FBYC |
23 & 24 August & 20, 21,
24, 27 & 28 September |
|
|
Sterkfontein Dam |
24 to 28 September |
|
|
Royal Natal Yacht Club |
24 to 28 September |
|
|
Saldanha Bay |
24 to 28 September |
|
|
Denysville Aquatic Club |
24 to 28 September |
|
|
Henley Midmar Yacht Club |
3 to 5 October |
|
|
Hout Bay Yacht Club |
4 October |
|
|
Chelmsford Boating Club |
4 & 5 October |
|
|
Various Clubs |
10 to 12 October |
|
|
Simon’sberg Naval Base,
Simonstown |
10 to 12 October |
|
|
Nautical Nomads Society |
25 & 26 October |
|
|
Albert Falls Yacht Club |
Changed to 15 & 16 November |
|
|
Seal Point Yacht Club/Manten
Marina |
25 & 26 October |
|
|
Durban Radio Boat Club |
8 & 9 November |
|
|
Hout Bay Yacht Club |
15 & 16 November |
|
|
FBYC & HBYC |
22 November |
|
|
Hout Bay to St Helena Island |
29 November 2003 |
|
|
Spionkop Boating Club |
6 & 7 December |
|
|
Royal Cape Yacht Club |
13 to 17 December |
|
|
Glendee Yacht Club |
1 & 2 February 2004 |
|
|
Point Yacht Club |
20 to 22 March |
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 andrew@smoothsailing.co.za.
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Mobile: +27 (0) 83 783 8805
This newsletter is
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