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:: 505’s sailing in Theewaterskloof Points Series (5-6 December) :: (100 Reads)
Posted by
warwick
on Wednesday, December 09, 2009 - 12:30 PM
The good news is that we made our class with five boats, one up from last year. The bad news is that at no time were all five boats on the course at the same time. The five boats were made up of Paul Wilcox, Ruaan De Hart, Grant Ballantyne and Sean Ballantyne, and Dudley Isaacs down from Knysna. On Saturday racing was scheduled to start at 13:30 but due to a lack of wind the fleet only got on the water at about 14:30 and bobbed around for about an hour before the wind came howling through like a derailed express train at 20 to 25 knots.
Grant found that his latest plan to control the leech of his main by transom sheeting needed a bit of work and didn’t work too well in the heavy breeze as the tiller extension kept fouling up. He headed for home to make a few adjustments. Ruaan also had his bout of bad luck when he lost his tiller and also headed for the beach. With three boats starting the first race it was going to be a battle for the crews and skippers as the wind was starting to build even stronger. The first race was taken by Dudley Isaacs with Paul hot on his heels.
Race two for the day was fantastic sailing with Paul and Dudley fighting for the top spot all the way round the course until Dudley in the lead, on one of the downwind legs came short and went over with the bag up. After righting the boat they discovered that the rig had broken at the shrouds, ending their regatta and giving Paul the win, with Sean coming in second.
Day two started again with no wind and a lot of Grandpa's (Headache powder – Ed) being past around between sailors. We drifted out to the start only to be sent home until the wind came through. At about noon some fresh breeze started to creep in and we got under way. Two races were sailed however the fleet had dropped down to three boats as Paul had to leave early to make it to the Killer’s concert that evening. In the first race Grant was OCS and had to turn around leaving Sean and Ruaan to fight for position up to the first mark. With Grant not far behind this made for some good close racing with Grant and Ruaan changing places all the way round the course. Final results for race three was Sean followed by Grant and Ruaan very close behind. The last race of the day saw Sean and Grant opting for the left hand side of the course while Ruaan sailed away from them on the right, opening up a large lead and holding on to it to take the race with Sean coming in second with Grant third.
All in all it was a great regatta and we would definitely like to see more of Dave and Dudley next year.
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