“How good is this”.
The Sussex Inlet and Basin Yacht Club puts on what I think is the nicest event of the TY sailing calendar, outside PKSC events that is. The club is always welcoming, consistently well organised, consistently fair and always generous with their time and friendship. Why wouldn’t you keep on going back to support this event.
Who showed up from PKSC:
Hataitai II with Connor, Ryley, Mica, Andrew, Cormac and Jesse aboard; Momentum with Barry, Ray, John, and Greg aboard; Whitewash with, Rod, Alistair, Andy and Aaron aboard; Rosstered Off with Jim, Richard, Shaun, Dave and Leo aboard; Breakaway with Hayden, Steve, Brad and Todd aboard; Serenity with Wayne, Daniel and Derek aboard and Frou Frou with Paul, Stephen Sullivan and me aboard.
The Sailing:
The young sailors piloting Hataitai II showed us all how to handle a boat in heavy weather during the passage race on Saturday and for their first time racing a trailer yacht as a crew they were easily outpacing and outpointing Frou Frou upwind on the first leg. They were impressive on the water and stole the hearts of the other participating sailors. I believe the future looks bright for our club if this is any indication of the quality of persons that will take over from us old (grumpy) members.
This weekend St Georges Basin had a strange effect on Rosstered Off and her usually well drilled crew. She was not performing anywhere near her best. Unless of course the plan was to give all us other competitors a chance at a podium finish. The most obvious examples of her departure from perfection sailing were during Saturdays race, pulling off a spectacular broach at the first jibe mark where she spent a long period of time on her side. Then, a couple of legs later she jettisoned Dave overboard during another spinnaker set with the consequence of having to turn around and pick him up. On Sunday she just sailed uncharacteristically slow on all points of sail. There was a lot of weed about on the course (and I don’t mean the illicit drug type of weed but the seaweed type of weed), so I would like to suggest she had a big clump of it stuck on her keel.
Breakaway’s crew wore a number of sailing apparel options (some onlookers unkindly described this as “silly looking headwear options”) which I now believe made the difference in the boats speed. On both race days, in Saturdays 25 knots with the “Where is Wally” hats and Sundays 5 to 10 knots with the “Red Curly Wig” numbers, participants were entertained by Breakaway and her crew, all be it briefly at the start. We watched her pull away from the fleet and vanish into the distance and didn’t see her again until moored back up in Sussex Inlet creek at the other end of the days racing.
It would be remiss of me if I didn’t make mention of the fine performance Momentum on both race days. Her crew really had her trucking in all points of sail, especially the downwind legs.
I guess the mixed sailing experiences from the weekend TY regatta demonstrate how challenging sailing can be. You think you have everything sorted and then a new unexpected variable is thrown into the mix making you aware of the need to be prepared to learn from the experience, to reassess your responses and building on your repertoire of sailing skills. Perhaps that’s what keeps us coming back for more.
There were certainly plenty of other good performance moments, on and off the water over the weekend from our Port Kembla Sailing Club TY sailors that I hope provide lasting good memories of the weekend away. It was also great to catch up with our TY sailing buddies from other clubs, and, despite the mixed sailing results, I think that the PKSC sailors who attended would all say they had a wonderful weekend on the water.
Preliminary results for Saturdays race, 4 February (Championship 6)
Place Boat Name Corrected time in minutes CBH (PBH)
First Breakaway 86.92 (86.92)
Second Momentum 93.69 (92.93)
Third Froufrou 93.82 (93.82)
Forth Serenity 95.01 (89.22)
Fifth Hataitai II 98.53 (98.53)
Sixth Rosstered Off 99.97 (101.95)
Seventh Whitewash 101.50 (100.68)
Just a reminder that this coming weekend the Manly Junior States will be on at PKSC so no race for us. If you have some spare time we could use your help at the club with the running of the event. The next time on the water for PKSC TYs will be 18 February.
The end Trev