The Radio Sailing KZN Marblehead Championships took place in extremely windy conditions at Durban's Radio Boat Club on Sunday. Des Fairbank sent me the following report on the regatta:

Eight Radio Marbleheads (Once the premier class in Radio Sailing ) were removed from mothballs for RSKZN's Championship hosted by the DRBC on Sunday.

On arrival at the pond it was very obvious that we were going to have a very exciting days sailing. The wind speed was recorded at 26knots even after passing through and over the numerous trees and buildings in its path before arriving at the pond from the South West. Two skippers attempted to launch their boats but did not have suitable size sails and so never even entered. The Marblehead class allows for 7 rigs three (A1,B1,C1 ) of which can be the maximum sail area allowed whilst the others must fit inside these(A2, B2, C2 and C3). This allows various aspect ratio sails for different wind strength's.

Because of the wind direction a zigzag course with two short beats was set up. This resulted in a start line almost parallel to the bank with very little water between the leeward start mark and the bank. In the wind conditions this made for extremely interesting stars with several incidents.

Most skippers started the racing on C3 with the occasional change up to C3. Places changed regularly in each race as boats were caught in cracks and could not tack or caught in a hole when the C3 Rig just did not drive the boat. This can be seen from the points where up until the last race anyone of the top 4 could have won the event.

During the racing we were paid a visit by none other than Harry Ellens and he informed us that the wind speed had been recorded at 40 knots and that all sailing had been cancelled. He was entertained with some exciting radio sailing.

After 15 hectic races the results were:

1st Des Fairbank 28
2nd Norrie Taylor 31
2nd Bernie Warner 31
4th Joe Robbertse 32
5th Ray Cockrell 59
6th Sheldon McGlone 87