Monday, January 21, 2008

Sydney 38’s at Dockland’s Invitational

[Source: Simon Reffold, Sydney 38 Class Association]

It’s been a weekend of extremes for the Sydney 38OD's sailing in the Docklands Invitational. This is the warm up regatta for next weekends Morris Finance Sydney 38OD National Championships being sailed as part of Skandia Geelong Week.

Yesterdays light air conditions saw two of the Sydney boats, Chris Way's Easy Tiger and Alan Brierty's Limit, battle it out at the top of the fleet with a clear speed advantage over the other eight boats.

Easy Tiger ultimately won the day but Limit was just a couple of points behind. The top Victorian boat was Lou Abrahams' Challenge who toughed it out in the first race but came back to be a consistent third at the end of the day.

Then it blew the dots of the I's today and Lou Abrahams crew, ably skippered by long time friend Carl Schmidt, showed their almost unmatched experience in heavy conditions with two bullets from two starts. Another Victorian also faired well - Ian Murray from Geelong, sailing Cinquante, had a great day posting two fourth places to draw on points with Sydneysiders Zen, sailed by Gordon Ketelbey and relegating them to fifth on a count back to hold fourth overall behind Challenge.

But despite the obvious skill of the Victorians in a blow, it wasn't enough to wrest the lead from Limit and Easy Tiger who battled it out for the top points all day. Chris Way decided to try a number four headsail instead of a three like the other competitors and paid the price in boat speed when the breeze went light from time to time. It was enough to let Limit take the ultimate honours for the Regatta with Easy Tiger second.

The top Corinthian boat (with no professional sailors on board) was Victorian Boat Sierra Chainsaw, skippered by Mel Mollison.

This was an excellent warm up event for the Nationals, with some Crews happy, and others going away to look at some boat speed issues, but all singing the praises of the organising team and the NSW boats especially complimentary of the Docklands setting and 'vibe' with so many Melbournians coming down to visit over the weekend.

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