Posted in Shipshaperc Round 1 of the Tasmanian State Inaugural Summer Series was held today in typical Tasmanian early Spring weather. Of the 16 entries that came in, it was fantastic to see everyone had come along, however, the weather soon had us lose a few and the day was mostly sailed with 13 skippers on site. For the last week, we have been buffeted with gale force winds, often passing 100km/hr (Tuesday). Today was not as extreme, but when we turned up at Risdon Dam this morning, we waited and watched, and waited, and waited, until the call came to abandon the sailing there for the day and head to the other Local at Lauderdale Canal. The guys set up the course, had a tune up sail while Tank and I prepared the BBQ lunch. Once we had a bit to eat and drink, we were welcomed to the day by Ajay, who gave the debrief before we got away. Conditions at the canal were much better than Risdon, with the wind only peaking at around 50km/hr - but at least the waves were not as large as at Risdon. Many of the Dragon Force skippers had just the A Rig, a few were fortunate enough to have a B Rig and most of the RG65 sailors had a suite of three. The initial race started with most on B Rigs where possible, and it was still quite a handful, with experienced skipper Chris showing the rest of us how to handle the wind, while sailing the C Rig on his home made Goth RG65. PhotoKat also sailed superbly with a very respectable 3rd placing. MrPenguin was PRO for the first race, so did not sail that one. The second race was the start of the dominance of Colin, who won the next four in a row. We did have one race in between that that we had to abandon due to the wind basically destroying the fleet and most skippers had to pick the yachts up either from the other side of the canal, or further downstream. Unfortunately, as the day wore on, yachts succumbed to the weather, with such issues as rudder shaft coming free, sail servo dying, all electrics failed and even a call from home when the roof (or part of it) peeled of one of the competitors houses due to the wind. By about 4pm (after the completion of just 6 races), we decided to pull up stumps for the day, lick our wounds and get ready for round 2 tomorrow at Port Cygnet Yacht Club. I wont post the standings yet, as I wish to get some things ratified (due to not knowing the scoring system too well with a few extra things we had such as the PRO receiving his average score for that race etc and dealing with DNS/DNF issues). In saying that though, I can safely say that our northern visitors have done themselves very well, dominating the results. The top three are from the North (Colin Tunn, Stephen Corbett, Ian Dickson), myself and Maurice Jones seem tied for 4th at the moment (one point from 3rd). Interesting that it is the DF in positions 1-4, with the first RG back tied in fourth as well, so the DFs did an awesome job in the high winds. Anyway, thats about enough from day 1. A bit disappointing that we were not able to summon the weather gods and make the wind settle, but we did get some good racing in, I believe we all enjoyed it, which was the most important thing, and we are all really looking forward to tomorrow. For those that are interested (I know, we are there to enjoy ourselves, but we also like to see where we are as well), the day 1 results will be posted once ratified. Like I said, no confusion there really, it is just my inexperience with it and I want to make sure it goes up right the first time around :)
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 08:21:01 +0000
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