Race Report - Saturday 25 January 2025

Sprint Racing

All photos by David Da Costa Enes

PRO Alistair Sutherland reports:

The Australia Day long weekend saw sprint races scheduled for DBSC with Alistair, John, David and Andrew on race management duties. We found lots of sun and a fickle 10 knot breeze that couldn't quite decide if it wanted to settle in the east or flick northeast. We hedged our bets and laid a windward leeward east-northeast course with enough length to target 20 minutes for the two laps. After a motivational chat with an ILCA gold medalist, the fleet emerged to find a very short line for the 36 plus boats, even with the ILCA7s giving the ILCA6s and ILCA4s a sporting one-minute head start. And that often proved to be nothing more than a token gift as the full rigs used all their brute power to swat through the chop and mercilessly mow down the under-canvassed targets in front of them. Managing congestion became the name of the game which should prove handy practice for the 30-odd club members heading to the NSW State Masters this weekend, where fleets of 60+ boats should result in plenty of boat-on-boat action.

We managed to get through 5 races in ideal conditions. Getting to the right-hand side of the course at the correct time was a winning strategy in the early rounds, but as the breeze increased to the 12 to 14 knot range, we saw large left shifts beginning to pay. Sylvie was as usual regularly to be found at the front of the Radial fleet, but she didn't have it all her own way. Roberto took out two excellent victories by some margin, and Kate found herself leading after the first lap on several occasions. Despite having the smallest rig of the day, Isabella hung in to finish all the races on her 4.7. Julian, Campbell and Zander had a three-way tussle at the front of the full rigs, with Luke pushing them all the way in a few races.