Aussie's Head Across 'The Ditch'

Come to Wattle Farm they said, it will be great they said! All encouraging news given in the past we sailed on a duck pond, a weed infested lake with no breeze and a piddly lake in chilly and wet Christchurch – surely they had to get it right this time!

In the days before the event the dreaded email came through advising that the host club was being challenged by a weed infestation but every effort was being made with tons of the stuff being hauled from the main lake on a daily basis and by the time we had a practice sail on the Thursday it would have appeared that their efforts were paying off however, by Friday the battle had been lost and the decision was to sail on the secondary lake (how lucky to have two of them).

^{_{The Secondary Lake}}

The forecast weather conditions were favorable, temperatures around 20C, sunshine and light winds for the duration, at least the shorts and t-shirts got a chance to get out instead of the wet weather gear.

Saturday morning, day one, and the Aussie team of Doug Allen (Qld), John Gower (Qld), Allan Walker (Qld), Russell Gray (Qld), Peter Smith (VIC) & Sean Wallis (WA) hit the water, ready to take on the Kiwi’s with the hope of grabbing the trophy and carting it across the Tasman.

Light winds with plenty of holes that saw big leads lost and won. Gower must have been on steroids banging out two bullets in the first two races which was a fantastic start for the Aussies as after four heats we’d won three of them and it all was looking good, and as the breeze steadied in the afternoon ‘The Prez’ got his groove on and a good tussle between him and the NZL champ Ian Vickers ensued, with The Prez getting on top by the end of the day by a solitary point.

Day two saw more of the same conditions and it was Vickers that managed the conditions best with consistency being the key to work his way to a 20 point lead heading into the final day. With the event sailed under the Simple Heat Racing System, by lunch the Qualification Series was completed and the fleet split into Gold & Silver for the afternoon and the final day of racing with four of our Aussies making the cut to Gold.

With Vickers holding a commanding lead going into the final days racing the battle was on for second overall with The Prez hanging on to a slim advantage ahead of Kiwi’s Graham Cross, Karl Stachel and Brett May who were keen on reversing the result of the previous years event.

Dougy, Mabo & Walker worked hard on improving their results to ensure a finish in the top ten while Russ & Peter were doing their best in the Silver fleet.

As part of the event a ‘psuedo’ Inter-Dominion Championship was scored between the Kiwi’s and the Aussie’s and at least we took a trophy home – Australia 1 / New Zealand 0 !!!

Note the Inter-Dominion Cup for the Aussie’s in Walkers hand!

^{The Aussie Team (L-R): John Gower, Russell Gray, Doug Allen, Sean Wallis, Alan Walker – absent Peter Smith}

Ultimately the event was won by the Kiwi, Ian Vickers, who was impressive to watch and showed skills the rest of us dream to have, and the remaining Kiwis showed that they are as competitive as our Aussie fleet and we look forward to welcoming them to the Gold Coast at our Australian Championship early 2019.

Full Results are available http://www.anzamsystems.com/NZL/Results.html

^{Phil Pryde (NZL) with a choice of Inter-Dominion Trophy (if the Kiwi’s won!)}