Club Sprints (SailGP)

by PRO, Healy Ryan

Saturday’s usual club racing was disrupted from its usual course by SailGP this weekend, so the start time was moved forward to 1pm and racing was turned into Club Sprints. But this was not the most unusual thing happening. This week 6 members of the DBSC youth squad and at least 4 parents helped run the racing and the usual volunteering duties. You would have seen us in the canteen, running races, setting-up and packing-up.

We had Liv Aitken and Zoe Allen helping Paul and Shirley on canteen duties (assisted by Charlie Aitken and Van Allen), then Sara Bruce and Miles Greenwood as COTD and co-COTD respectively (assisted on the rib by Rob Bruce), and Healy Ryan and Theo McGonigle as PRO and co-PRO respectively (assisted on the rib by James Tudball).

As mentioned before, SailGP was out in full force, occupying the water from Bradleys Head to Shark Island, which left a narrow channel for us to work with. Not only was SailGP taking up room, but RSYS and CYCA had their usual club racing as well. We even had a lone RSYS yacht rounding our top mark instead of their own!

So we tucked into Double Bay and laid a windward leeward course with a separation mark, which was long enough for sprints...and provided great practice for shifty conditions! Back on shore, a niggly issue with the Paul Adam battery was fixed (thanks to John Vasey and Craig Ryan for their assistance) and it was about time for briefing.

The light-moderate SE breeze brought gloomy conditions, not a sight of the sun and a few brief showers. The RC had a pleasant time with the oscillating wind and we luckily didn't need to shift the course throughout the day.

With many late arrivals I was looking forward to starting right on 1pm and with support from something above our heads. Eddie Alexander arrived at 12:27pm and proceeded to rig, change, and sail out to the race course in 32 minutes with one mark rounding before the warning signal. Impressive!

All three fleets were well behaved for the first two races but as some top sailors joined and the fleet size increased, sailors started to push harder and harder on the start line. In the Radials' third race, the few that rocked up late, and weren’t Usain Bolt at rigging, graced us with their presence, but it's fair to say we can blame them for the ensuing radial and 4.7 problem...or obsession with being over! There were 25 boats over in Race 3, which resulted in a general recall and the later sighting of a black flag. Healy, Theo and James also had to switch to being the 'onwater jury', delegating some 360 penalties to boats who were over. This did lead to some better starting behaviour, and ultimately good quality racing.

It was a very successful day with a 7 race series completed and a single drop.

The full rigs were best behaved by far. My overall winner of the day for 4.7s would have to go to Raph McLachlan in only his second time sailing a laser. He had an unfortunate mishap with a broken alloy mast at the start of the day, but persevered and got out in time for race 3 and took the lead in many of the later races. In the Radial, Sylvie, Paige, Jack, and Eddie did well but had to be discounted because of their repeated casual disregard for going through the start line before their class flag went down! Scott Hunter was the man of the hour(s) continually being up the front and making many calculated choices, such as choosing the unpopular gate mark but then gaining 100 meters on the second up-wind as a result of that choice.

For the full rigs, an honorable mention goes out to Steve who I think legally changed his name to Steve Commodore. He had a race win and an even better celebration (did you see it on DBSC's instagram?!). That made my day. But you just couldn’t look past John Sweeny. He was all-round one of the best out there, especially in terms of cooling off immediately after the finish line with a capsize 20cm after the line. Perfection.

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