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:: Van Nimwegen regatta report :: (354 Reads)
Posted by
warwick
on Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 09:55 PM
Although the "wind gods" did not have much in store for the seven 505ers on the weekend of 5 and 6 September, our bridge officer, Cor Langhout deserves all praise for making the best of a bad case by wasting no time, setting courses quickly and starting us. In this way he succeeded in getting four races in on the Saturday, making the best use of the little wind there was. Thank you, Cor, you made our weekend!
In general, the established teams again dominated the top three positions which shows the importance of good boat handling teamwork, which of course does not come overnight. Kyle and Robert, showed off their light wind expertise but Peter and Thomas, the "strong wind specialists" were not far behind. Unfortunately they sailed with a mainsail that did not measure, so they reluctantly had to retire after the regatta.
Our class members should appreciate the fact that our president and secretary set a good example to retire gracefully even though they have to return their medal and their ranking is thereby affected. After all sailing is a gentleman's sport.
Two lessons we can all learn from this are, first that it is the sailer's responsibility not the measurer's that the equipment measures at all times, and second, if measurement rules state a maximum and/or a minumum dimension, it would be wise to stay away by 1 mm from these limits to be safe. That millimeter will not cost you any speed but it could cost, or save you a disqualification. At international events the jury (and not the measurer) can at any time call on a competitor to have his equipment measured or re-measured and if it fails, he will be disqualified. Now, as we do not have the luxury of juries, it would be the responsibility of the Exco to fulfill that function. (? We need to check the rules to see if this is the case - Ed)
Rudolph and Ferdinand did not have the best regatta, finishing in third position overall moving up to second after the Funkes' retirement. Albrecht's new combination with Eddie Forster paid off handsomely. In the first race they rounded the weather mark in second position and, if the race on the Sunday would not have been abandoned (Cor, you owe me one!) they would have finished that one, a mile in front of the rest. Alex and Warwick Ham are a new team to be watched in future, Alex bringing some real fighting spirit (and some interesting tactics) from the Oppy class into the "old fivers". Keep it up!
Tony Murray with Andrew Arthur as crew had a bit of an encounter with Craig Parker/Willie Burmann:
As told to me by Craig "In the first race, coming up to the weather mark in our normal safe last position, we did not expect much of a problem coming in on port, but, lo and behold, there was Tony coming from nowhere on starboard! We hit and damaged our nose on his gunwale, nearly sinking our ship in the process. This put us out of the regatta."
Note that, though Tony had no hole in his boat, it also put him off for two races to calm down.
Craig, just remember in future: even a last position is not guaranteed and a five is very soft in the nose!
So, lots of fun and exitement. you who did not come missed out!
Albrecht Holm
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