Well the weekend weather eventually turned out to be a whole lot better than predicted with the result that the L26 KZN Champs were sailed offshore Durban in outstanding conditions.
A fleet of some 13 boats turned out for the regatta including three Gauteng and two Western Cape entries.
The first two days of the regatta were sailed in a fresh westerly wind with Sunday's westerly the freshest of the lot resulting in some exciting downwind action and small headsails all round by the end of the race. Two races were sailed on each of the days with race officer Dave Rushton doing an outstanding job in setting nice long courses and wasting no time in getting the second race underway almost as soon as the last boat had finished the first race. Monday saw the north easter make a late appearance. It did however take it's time to build and at one stage it looked like it would fade away into nothingness with race five ending in next to no wind. Luckily though the wind kicked in for race six which was sailed in building easterly breeze.
The Western Cape boats turned out to be in a league of their own occupying the first two places in all but one of the races. This despite some good efforts from them in being over the line early or nowhere to be seen when the starting gun was fired. Whatever happened they always had outstanding speed through the water and were able to sail through the fleet with ease. The only time they did not achieve this was in race five which was sailed in extremely light conditions. Of the two Dave Hudson's "Greenlight" was the most dominant winning races one two and three to establish and early lead in the regatta and then wrapping up proceedings with a win in the sixth and final race. Mark Sadler's "MSC Orion Challenger" was consistently second throughout the regatta finishing second in all but races four and five. She did however look even better in the really fresh breeze and won race four, the windiest race of the regatta, in convincing style.
The next three places went to KZN boats with Harry Ellen's "Parental Guidance" edging out Craig Millar's "MSC Orion Zephyr" in the final race to take the bronze medal by only one point. These two have been neck and neck throughout the season and while this can only be god for both teams in the long run it is just a pity that it doesn't look like it has got them close enough to the Western Cape boats at this stage of the season. Jerome McLoughlin's "Harken" sailed consistently well in the middle of the fleet to finish fifth just two points ahead of the first Gauteng boat, "La Digue", sailed by Rob Wilcox.
So after six fairly hard races no one can complain that they have not had a sufficient build up into the NCS Regatta which is now only two weeks away and for which we can expect a bigger and even more competitive fleet.
Finally the missing trophy which was mentioned in Friday's newsletter. Well it failed to turn up and has now been replaced by a new model. The new model will not however stray far from it's home and hopefully will be around for a long time to come.
The top five in the KZN Champs were as follows:
1st Greenlight Dave Hudson/David Rave 6 Points
2nd MSC Orion Challenger Mark Sadler/Greg Davis 9
3rd Parental Guidance Harry Ellens 15
4th MSC Orion Zephyr Craig Millar 16
5th Harken Jerome McLoughlin 29
