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D5 January 2004 Twenty-seven boats contested the 2003 Sprog Nationals that were sailed at the Henley Midmar Yacht Club in KZN from the 27th to the 30th of December. The dam wall at Midmar has been raised in the last year and the surrounds of the dam have been prepared for the new heights that the water will reach when the dam finally fills. Like many dams in South Africa at the moment though Midmar remains woefully empty. With the water level at 30% only one is faced with a long walk from the end of the slipways to the waters edge and oversized dolly wheels are a necessity. This year has been a quite one for the Sprog class and there wasn't quite the same buzz in the build up to the nationals that there has been in recent years. It was therefore slightly surprising that the total number on entries was only one down on last years when twenty-eight boats contested the regatta. The standard of sailing this year was markedly higher though with three top class crews contesting the title. The bunch once again featured an interesting mix of the young and old with the likes of the experienced Harry Ellens racing neck and neck with up and coming young sailors like Bridget and Meagan Clayton. Jonathan Heathcote and Maya Minkova have dominated the Sprog class for the last four years with convincing wins in the nationals every year. Sponsored this year by The Sharks they faced tough competition from Gautengers Paul and Grame Willcox. The Willcox's came to the regatta well prepared with good boats, good sails and clearly having done a fair amount of practice. From the outset it was clear that they had the pace to match The Sharks boat with Jonathan perhaps having suffered from the lack of a good training partner and any quality racing in Durban in the build up to the regatta. Sprog crews often don't have to do very much and a good skipper can easily get away with a crew who knows only the basics. This has long been one of the strong points for this class making it very couple friendly. Graeme Wilcox cleverly brought with him one of the most talented young sailors in the country, Bronwyn Klaas. Bronwyn is a good skipper in her own right and managed some very good individual race results in last years nationals in an at best ordinary boat. I suspect that she added a tactical edge that both Jonathan and Paul lacked on their boats. Graeme was rarely in the wrong place on the water and at the end of the twelve-race regatta had never finished out of the top three. When the racing is as tight as it was in this regatta it can only be an advantage to have a crew who can help to get the boat in the right place on the course and perhaps being able to focus that little bit more on boat speed was what gave Graeme the edge. Whenever has was down he was able to come back he never ever looked slower than any of the other boats, both of whom went through their bad patches. A feature of the regatta were the closely contested starts. In fact not once clean start was achieved under the P flag with the I and Black flags being put to regular use. This could be put down to a number of factors, shortish start lines, excessively biased start lines or an extremely competitive fleet. Having looked at it closely, and I looked very closely as I was the bridge officer for two days, I don't think that it was any of these. Rather I think that it can be put down to the large number of junior skippers in the fleet. Juniors in SA tend to employ a vastly different starting technique to those in the senior classes. Optimist sailors tend to reach down the start line at speed shortly before the start, hardening up at the start signal at full speed. This tends to work in junior fleets where there is a clear hierarchy based on age and ability and it is easy to bully those of lesser experience out of the way. Try doing that to Paul Willcox or Harry Ellens though and see what happens. Without doubt what ensues is a verbal blast, a big nudge to windward and a premature start. I was surprised to see that the technique didn't change during the regatta. This is something that our junior coaches could do well to address and hopefully the next time our Optimist team does badly at the worlds we wont be able to site the starts as the reason why! Once the starts were over the racing was extremely good. On the whole the conditions were windier than one might have expected on Midmar. In recent years this has been a light wind regatta but this year it certainly wasn't. What it was though was shifty. Big shifts and variations in wind strength were a feature of this event. This may have owed a lot to the low level of the water on the dam. Often the shifts were predicable although it is a lot easier to keep track of the wind patterns from the comfort of the committee boat than while hiking out trying to fend off twenty-six other Sprogs. Certainly the conditions place a premium on tactics and meant that being in the right place was often slightly more important than being quicker than the opposition. Around the race course it was invariably the fast three, Graham Willcox and Bronwyn Klaas, Jonathan Heathcote and Maya Minkova and Paul Willcox and Kim Lamont, who set the pace at the front. Few others made it into the front three although Harry Ellens occasionally looked like he could upset the apple cart. Rob Tarboton put in an outstanding performance in one of the shiftier races to show what a sharp mind can do on the dam and Bridgett and Meagan Clayton popped up towards the front a couple of times. The front three fought hard and there was often little to choose between them. All three were clearly sailing as hard as they could and the physical effort that they were putting into making their boats go fast was something to see. As the regatta progressed Graham managed to achieve a bit of an ascendancy over Jonathan and Paul, both of who had their bad races along the way. By the time the regatta ended with twelve races having been sailed Graham had won six of them with Jonathan and Paul each having won three. While Jonathan slipped to a fifth in one race Paul managed to keep himself in the top three throughout but after an average points redress award for the ninth race Jonathan was able hold him off by just three quarters of a point for the silver medal. The margin of thirty-four points between Paul Willcox in third and Harry Ellens in fourth highlighted the gap between the front three and the chasing pack. The pace and intensity was just too much for the rest of the fleet who all need to put in some practice and get some new sails if they want to be in the mix next year. Some time in the gym wouldn't go amiss either. In fourth place overall Harry Ellens was the first master while fifth placed Nick and Sarah Matter, who along with Harry were the only other crew to record a top three finish in any race, won the family trophy. Finishing in sixth place Bridget and Megan Clayton sailed well at times and showed that they are not only talented young sailors but a force to be reckoned with in the future. They have performed well at junior level recently and it was good to see them being competitive in a senior fleet. So once again the Sprog has proved to be an excellent boat providing outstanding racing to a high quality fleet. The age of the boats remains a concern with only two boats less than ten years old in the fleet. Where the age of the boats is a cause for concern the age of the sailors is a cause for enthusiasm. Seeing such a wide spread age group out on the water sailing hard and having fun gives one hope for the future of our sport. After a period of dominance by one crew it was also good to see that a good boat with new sails sailed well can still win in the class. So, winning a Sprog Nationals remains an attainable and desirable thing to do. Who will be challenging Graham for his crown next year?? The top five places in the regatta were as follows:
1st Graham Willcox & Bronwyn Klaas 14 Points
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