Monday, February 9, 2015

Day Five for Point Yacht Club's Dinghy Class Champs


Point Yacht Club
Dinghy Class Champs Day Five
Harbour: Saturday 7 February

A splendid fleet of 24 dinghies participated in the fifth day of the Point Yacht Club’s Dinghy Class Champs held in the harbour on Saturday.

Returning after a long absence, Patrick Harris and Jeremy Kriek returned to the water in their brand new, glisteningly beautiful, carbon hull Flying Fifteen, Ffigjam. The highly decorated sailors showed their class as they powered to the front in their division, with a comfortable lead in all three races. 


In the Laser class, Gregg Dobson returning home from work in Madagascar loved being back on the water. He took the line honours in the first race, but got jammed up at the start in the second race, finishing in seventh and then a fifth in the final race. Trent Bingham also returned from a long absence from sailing, claiming the honours in the second race, but was forced to retire from the third race due to his kicker breaking. Another long-time absent sailor made his welcome return. Rowen Clark from Pennington took to the water after a number of years. It didn’t take him long to get back into the swing of things, finishing in seventh in his first race. He managed to up a gear and finished in fourth in the second race, then improved some more in the final race finishing third.


The only lady in the fleet, Frances Van Breda showed up a number of the blokes with a fine tally of a fourth, a sixth and a third in her three races.


A colourful fleet of Hobies also came out to compete to get in some water time ahead of their Nationals, the upcoming Hobie Epic to Richards Bay and the 9 Hour at Midmar. The entire fleet opted to retire from the first race, all camping out on the sand bank in the middle of the bay due to the winds dropping off.


Peter Hall sailing one up on his Hobie 14 came first in the second and third race with a tussle for second place occurring between Michael Dickinson and Hannah Fokkens on their Hobie 16 and 14 year old Dylan Alberts racing on his Hobie 14. Dickinson helming the Hobie 16 took second place in the second race, meanwhile Alberts snuck in ahead of the larger Hobie in the final race, much to his verbal elation at beating the older and more accomplished Dickinson.


The multi-coloured and multi-class fleet of 24 dinghies consisted of a Mirror, a Dabchick, Hobies, Lasers, Flying Fifteens, RS Teras, a 29er and an RS Feva.


After the first race, the breeze shifted from an Easterly, moving around to a South Easterly, causing the Race Officer, Kevin Bingham to make a course adjustment. Bingham managed to get in three windward leeward races in near the T-Jetty. As the afternoon drew on, the 8knot breeze dropped to a gentle 5knots, forcing Bingham to shorten the final race.

This weekend sees two events hosted by Point Yacht Club, the conclusion to the Dinghy Class Champs and the first in the Jockey Series offshore of Durban. Race Officer Ron Pet has organised a tactical sausage course for the keelboats, ensuring lots of action as the bigger boats are required to carve through a set of ‘gates’ in the centre of the course and will have two options to round at the bottom mark.


For more info visit www.pyc.co.za or like the Point Yacht Club’s Facebook page.



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