Last Sunday the Tweed valley Sailing Club hosted its first race of the Summer series. 18 boats raced on the Fingal Reach on the long Olympic course (3 laps with 1-n.mile windward legs) in lovely clear and sunny weather with a light SSE’ly breeze.
Monique Smith in her Laser “Rolling Stone” wisely opted to avoid the crowded boat end start line and sailed a fast windward leg to be first boat around the top mark. The lead changed a couple of times with eventual winners on scratch being 1st Impulse “Splitter”( Lex Branch), 2nd Laser “Bluey” (Kate Yeomans) and 3rd Corsair “Monopoly” (Andy Lamont, Melissa Le Roux and John Morgan). Lex’s morning training session paid off!
This race was the first heat of 5 for the Laser and Corsair Class Championships.
Fastest today in the Laser Class Championship race was “Bluey” (Kate Yeomans), beating 2nd finisher, “Rolling Stone” (Monique Smith) by 1 minute 30 secs & 3rd was ” Dreadnought” (Peter Fell) only 30 secs behind. This was a great result for Monique and her best ever in a Laser since switching from her Corsair.
In the Corsair Class Championship 8 boats were hustling for a good position on the crowded starting line. In the end, “Monopoly”(Andy Lamont, Melissa Le Roux, and John Morgan) lead all the way, and took the bullet for a convincing win, finishing 3min 30secs ahead of 2nd placed “None the Wiser” (Justin Johnson, Eden Johnson & Emily Johnson) and very close behind, only 15 seconds later, “Nimbis (Debbie Jones, Scott Jones & Renee Cohan). 4th was “Minnow” (Frank Bolfava, Andrew Locke & Brandon Locke) and 5th was “Keenas” (Mark Reynolds, Marg Walgers & Joe D’Ambrosia.)
The club today welcomed a new Corsair team sailing “Polly” (Greg Edds, Ulana Edds & Tom Edds) who travelled from Brisbane to race with us on the tweed.
The other race was the clubs’ summer Pointscore series, where every race counts, and is based on handicap.
Top points today went to Impulse class “Splitter” (Lex Branch), 2nd was Laser, “Rolling Stone” (Monique Smith) and 3rd was Impulse, “Rosie” (Adam hurt)
Junior sailors were well represented today with 3 teams sailing NS14’s. Todays top junior team was NS14 “Zazen” sailed by Tom Busbridge and Layla Schultz, just edging out on handicap, NS14 “On & Off”(Dave Robinson & Hugh Robinson.) while on NS14 Mantana, Tristen and Isabelle Pofandt, are still working out the rigging of these complexed boats and unfortunately missed the start.
Thanks to our support team who make racing possible; Race Officer Craig Foley, Geoff Colwill on our rescue boat and Time keeper Suzanne Blatcher, who was helped by Jack Tarrent who came down and volunteered for the day.
The clubs next event will be 3 short course races held on the Fingal reach on the 25th of October starting at 13:00 NSW time. The big race this day will be our premier contempory development class, the Australian NS14, racing the first 3 heats of their Club championship and concurrently the 4th heat of the summer point score. Crew positions are often available but this is on spec. Licensed and competent boat drivers are welcome to help by driving our rescue boats. Spectators can view racing close up from the river bank along the Fingal reach. All visitors are very welcome.