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Something
pretty unique happened this weekend when 14-year-old Shark Kahn won the Melges
24 World Championships on San Francisco Bay. At 14 Kahn is probably the
youngest open class world champion in sailing and he didn’t do it in an easy
class either. The Melges 24 Worlds attracted a quality fleet of pro sailors
including America’s Cup and Volvo Race winners, Olympic medallists and some of
the world’s top pro crews. Shark’s win is made all the more impressive when you
consider that he was able to stay ahead of such high quality sailors. Of course
none of it would have been possible if it wasn’t for the fact that Shark’s dad
is the software mogul Phillip Kahn, also the owner of the mighty Pegasus
Yachting organisation and the maxi sled Zephyrus IV. On board the Melges 24
with him Kahn had Mark Christensen, Richard Clarke and Brian Hutchinson, three
of the worlds top professional sailors, while his cousin, Brian Lee sailed on
the bow. So does this prove that if you buy the best crew you will win, not
necessarily? Phillip Kahn also sailed this regatta and kitted himself out with
an arguably more talented team including Team New Zealand main trimmer Adam
Beashel. If buying the best crew made the difference then Phillip would have
done much better than 19th, which is where he ended up. Now I may be
cynical, but I wonder if this doesn’t just prove that its easier for the pro’s
to get a 14 year old, who is perhaps more easily led, to do exactly what they
want, than a 40 odd year old who clearly knows exactly what he wants? While
there may be some truth in my theory, I think that one also has to acknowledge
that no matter how good your pro’s are you still need to drive more than just
averagely well to win, especially at this level. I am also pretty sure that we
are going to see more of Shark Kahn in the future! For more on the Melges 24
Worlds and Shark’s historic win, go to www.melges24.com.
RC Laser Nationals
Coming Soon!
Orion
Vasco Da Gama Race Extended Video
The Nautical Nomads Regatta takes place this coming weekend at the
Sterkfontein Dam. Last years event went down well with all who were there and
this year’s should be no exception. The cold spell that has been gripping the
country should have moved well away by then and Sterkfontein is almost always
windy so there should be some good sailing to be had. While the organisers tell
me that there haven’t been quite as many pre-entries as they had hoped for,
something that yachties are notoriously bad for, they are still expecting a
fairly reasonable turnout of boats. They also expect a wide variety from
dinghies to cats to a few trailable keelers. It should be a good weekend of
sailing so if you haven’t got yourself ready to go yet, download the Notice of
Race from out Notices of Race web page and get yourself organised. For more
information you can contact Gavin Davies at gavin_davies@scottbader.co.za or Steve Hegestrom at sheger@mweb.co.za.
The Sharks
really blew it when they threw away what should have been an easy victory over
the Lions on Friday evening. The players salaries should be given to charity
after a performance like that, mostly because that’s what they did with their
Currie Cup log points on Friday, gave them to a charitable cause, the Lions.
Actually they are more of a lost cause than charitable since they can’t even
qualify for the final no matter how many points we give them! With both the
Bulls and Western Province having won comfortably this weekend the pressure is
really on the Sharks now if they are to even make the final. The only thing
that is certain at this stage is that the Bulls will be in the final and it
will be played at Loftus. Whether it is the Sharks or Western Province that
they play remains to be seen but given our performance on Friday night, well
one would have to be a bit of an optimist to think that we have what it takes
now. Making life even harder for us is that our next match, the final one of
the Currie Cup round robin series, is against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein. The
Cheetahs haven’t exactly set the word on fire this season but they have been
good enough at least to suggest that they will fancy their chances of downing
the Sharks!
PYC’s Saturday Dinghy Racing got off to an early, and quite smelly start this weekend.
The smell was due to the Sealand Express, which had a huge fire on board off
Durban a week ago, being towed into the harbour just before racing started. The
fire was still smouldering away and with the course directly downwind of the
ships berth it was not the most pleasant place to be for a couple of
hours. Our friends at the SA Weather
Service got it badly wrong for Durban and there was no rain to be seen. Instead
a pleasant 8 to 12 knots of southerly to southwesterly breeze allowed two good
races to be sailed before it was time for rugby. With the breeze switching
between the south and south west laying the weather mark was difficult and
ultimately the course was a little one sided. Still the racing was good
although the fleet was again small. I think that it will only be once the early
starts and the rugby are out of the way that things return to normal in Durban!
Still everyone who was out on the water seemed to have a good time and there
was some very close racing in some of the classes. Hopefully this is a sign of
things to come and we can look forward not only to closer racing but bigger
fleets in the near future. The leaders in each of the classes that sailed,
after two races, are as follows:
|
Flying
Fifteen |
Patrick
Harris & Jeremy Kriek |
|
Laser |
Richard
Bate |
|
Sprog |
Jof
Heathcote & Maya Minkova |
|
29er |
Rob
Tarboton & Aaron Larkens |
|
Hobie
16 |
Jack
Butler & Dave Gait |
The first big game of the Rugby World Cup lived up to its billing and was a titanic
encounter between two tough teams. South Africa tried hard but ultimately
didn’t have what it takes to beat the English who made the most of every
opportunity that came their way. At least one team came out of this game worse
off than the Springboks though and that is the team that designed those
stunning tight tops that all the players were wearing. There were more torn shirts that turnovers
during the match. Even worse for the design team at Nike is that it became
apparent that the players cant get into or out of their shirts themselves and
it takes two team mates to help perform this tricky exercise, not a good thing
at all! So now the Boks move on to Sydney for their next match against Georgia
this coming Friday. This one should be a relatively easy encounter so expect a
big score!
The J22
Worlds web site has
finally come on line so we have been able to see what’s happened at that
regatta. The event seems to have been plagued by poor weather conditions with
only five races eventually sailed. This was either due to there being too much
or too little wind. A couple of the races seem to have been sailed in quite
fresh conditions and there are some good pics of J22’s looking like they are
trying to take off upwind while others are doing their best to turn turtle
downwind! 56 boats were entered in the regatta with most of these coming from
Europe. Despite the fact that the last worlds were held in the USA and won by
an American, J22 sailors don’t seem to travel and there we no US entries at
this regatta. The majority of the sailors were from the Netherlands and Italy
with Denmark, France and of course South Africa also represented. Dave Hudson,
sailing with his son Roger and Charles Nankin, finished best in 14th
position with their best result being a 7th in race 2. Philip Baum,
Brian Lion-Cachet and Roy Dunster finished in 28th position, a
result that they will be a little disappointed with. South Africa has a strong
and active J22 class so one might have expected our results at this event to be
a little better than they were. It’s always hard to judge how well you will do
when it comes to a regatta such as this and especially so when most of this
years fleet probably weren’t at last years worlds. To see the full final
results and some good pictures from the regatta go to www.svbg.it.
Despite the bad, and as it turns out
incorrect weather forecast for the weekend, there was a good turnout for the
Henley Midmar Yacht Club’s Rose
Bowl Series Sunday. Three races
were sailed in a good dam wall breeze with a fleet of 3 Hunters, an L20 and 6
juniors. It sounds like the racing was pretty close and exciting but ultimately
it was Jamie Barker, a junior sailing a Dabchick, who came out on top winning
the HMYC Rose Bowl for 2003. The top 4 places were as follows:
|
1st
|
Jamie
Barker |
Dabchick |
|
2nd
|
Robin
McIntosh |
Hunter |
|
3rd
|
Fritz
Von Klemperer |
Hunter |
|
4th
|
Richard
Solomon |
Hunter |
Next Saturday
sees the Spring Series taking place at the Henley
Midmar Yacht Club. This series consists of two medium distance races.
There will be a briefing at 10:30 with the start not before 11:00. This series
is aimed at the more laid back sailors who want to do a bit of racing without
the pressure of hectic mark roundings and packed start lines. For more
information on sailing at HMYC contact Robin McIntosh at robin.mcintosh@liblink.co.za.
There
was RC Laser
sailing in Durban on Sunday with a pre-nationals practice regatta taking place
down at the Durban Radio Boat Club. 21 sailors and boats took part in the days
sailing with 11 races sailed. This years RC Laser Nationals, which are being
sponsored by Electronic Specialities, are going to take place on the 8th
and 9th of November, which I see is only two weekends away! What
that means is that for all those RC Laser sailors out there like myself who
haven’t been near their boats in ages, time is fast running out for us to get
our boats working and put in some practice! Luckily the Thursday Evening Summer
Series starts again this week with the first Thursday evening regatta taking
place this week. Racing is set to start at 17:30 and will count towards the
Summer Leader Board. I am sure that we are going to see the intensity of the RC
Laser fleet pick up in the next two weeks and I am also sure that there will be
some relatively new faces down at the pond in the next while, I know that I
will be one of them! In the meantime the results of Sundays regatta, which I
was not at, were as follows:
|
1st |
Des Fairbank |
11 Points |
|
2nd |
Norrie Taylor |
30 |
|
3rd |
Jimmy Melville |
44 |
For more information on the Nationals,
Thursday Evening Sailing or anything to do with RC Lasers visit www.rclaser.co.za.
The following
entries have been received for the 2003 South Star One Two Race from Hout Bay
to St Helena Island:
|
Yacht Name |
Design |
Category |
Crew 1 |
Crew 2 |
|
Rotary
Scout |
Tosca
39 |
Gaurdboat |
Tom
Ambrose |
Derick
Lourens |
|
Hot
Ice |
Mount
Gay 30 |
Single-handed |
Peter
Roelofze |
|
|
Engel
& Volkers |
Farr 40 |
Double-handed |
Wayne
Badenhorst |
Danny
Blankenburg |
|
Crystal
Spray |
Farr
38 |
Single-handed |
Piet
Scheepers |
|
|
Morning
Glory |
Sadler
32 |
Single-handed |
George
De-Beer |
|
|
Air
Power |
Lavranos
36 |
Double-handed |
Gerry
Heggie |
Gerry
Heggie |
|
Pintado |
Muira
30 |
Double-handed |
Gavin
Greig |
Eduaro
Jonesma |
|
Jika |
Judel/Vrolik
30 |
Double-handed |
Dale
Kushner |
Ian
Coward |
|
Warlock |
Mini
Transat 650 |
Single-handed |
Michael
O’Niel |
|
|
Susanna
Maria |
Villan
30 |
Single-handed |
Ian
Williams |
|
|
Cracker
Jack |
Tosca
39 |
Double-handed |
Graham
Cochrane |
Sheldon
Dickerson |
The extended video of the 2003 Orion Vasco Da Gama Race, which contains one and a half hours of footage, is now
available from the official race videographer, Trevor C of Nautical Images. To
order your copy contact Trevor now at tc@nauticalimages.co.za. The tapes cost R110-00 per copy with an
additional R20-00 payable if you need to have your copy mailed to you.
The full results of the 2003 Muira Nationals are now available on the class web site at
www.capewindjammers.co.za.
There is some Sailing on TV in the next few days although it’s mostly
this week’s edition of Watersports World. Still it is worth watching if you get
the chance, as there is often some good sailing on it. The schedule for this
week is as follows:
|
Watersports
World |
Supersport
2 |
17:00 |
Monday
20th |
|
Watersports
World |
Supersport
2 |
01:30 |
Tuesday
21st |
|
Watersports World |
Supersport
2 |
15:45 |
Wednesday
22nd |
|
University Boat Race
(Rowing) |
Supersport
1 |
09:30 |
Thursday
23rd |
|
Watersports
World |
Supersport
1 |
19:00 |
Thursday
24th |
|
Watersports
World |
Supersport
1 |
01:00 |
Friday
25th |
|
Watersports
World |
Supersport
2 |
21:00 |
Monday
27th |
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 |
|
Nautical Nomads Society |
25 & 26 October |
|
|
Albert Falls Yacht Club |
Changed to 15 & 16 November |
|
|
Pennant Nine Yacht Club |
18 & 19 October |
|
|
Seal Point Yacht Club/Manten
Marina |
25 & 26 October |
|
|
Durban Radio Boat Club |
8 & 9 November |
|
|
Hout Bay Yacht Club |
15 & 16 November |
|
|
Lake Denys Yacht Club |
15 & 16 November |
|
|
FBYC & HBYC |
22 November |
|
|
Hout Bay to St Helena Island |
29 November 2003 |
|
|
Point, Royal Natal & Zululand
Yacht Clubs and Club Naval, Maputo |
December 2003 to July 2004 |
|
|
Spionkop Boating Club |
6 & 7 December |
|
|
Royal Natal Yacht Club Christmas
Regatta |
Royal Natal Yacht Club |
13 to 16 December |
|
Royal Cape Yacht Club |
13 to 17 December |
|
|
Henley Midmar Yacht Club |
13 to 16 December |
|
|
Henley Midmar Yacht Club |
27 to 30 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.
FOR SALE
No. 23575
Situated in
Cape Town.
Contact:
Carel
Cell: 072 551
4223
E-mail: zvogel@kingsley.co.za
In the Durban
Marina
R3 000-00
Contact:
Brian
Phone:
039-973 2247
E-Mail: yachty@telkomsa.net
On trailer with
sail box
Contact: John
Lupton-Smith
Cell: 083 301
4775
With sails
and dolly
R1 500-00
Contact:
Charles
Cell: 082 926
0046
WANTED
E-Mail: Brendan.vickers@poyry.co.za
2nd Hand in good condition
Preferably in Durban area
Contact: Trish Adams
E-Mail: vixend@iafrica.com
In reasonable condition for Club Racing.
Contact: Louwrens Toerien
Tell: (H) 021 880 1749, (W) 021 659
4867
E-Mail: louwrens.toerien@za.didata.com
Andrew Heathcote
Mobile: +27 (0) 83 783 8805
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