Champion Lakes turned on brilliant conditions on Monday and Tuesday for the Marblehead Championships. Unfortunately, the ugly sister, Chump Lakes turned up for the Ten Rater Nationals. When the wind blows up the middle, Champion Lakes is fantastic. It is a very different proposition when the wind comes across from the south-east! Nevertheless, the Championship was run and won, and both race officials and skippers managed the conditions as best they could
A look down the results sheet will give you an idea how tricky the easterly breeze was to read and manage. Skippers had big scores right alongside low scores with a real mix of people managing to notch up race wins. You could be way out in front, only to fall in a hole and have the fleet blast passed on a big shift (well - different direction really).
The wind was light to begin with, and built slightly over the course of the first day. All boats were in A rig to begin with, and a few went to their B rig quite successfully later in the afternoon.
Local sailor, Roger Paul started the event like he knew where to go and where the wind would blow. Rosco Bennett, sailing a Dave Creed designed Defector 2, got off to a good start too, following up his success in the Marbleheads. Probably the biggest revelation was the effort of Mat Donelly, returning to Ten Rater sailing after a number of years away. His new Sanga looked impressive and certainly sailed impressively.
John Gower, visiting from Queensland, made very few mistakes and notched up consistently good scores in the first three or four places. As is very common in radio sailing, minimising those big scores is key to a great performance. Meanwhile, after a bit of a glitch early in the event, Glenn Dawson, started to get his Sanga rolling, and was placing in the top three consistently.
During the afternoon, Rosco, Glenn and John were within one point of one another, with Roger Paul and Mat Donelly ready to strike as soon as one of the leaders stumbled. Overnight, Glenn had opened up a 9 point lead to Rosco.
The photo above shows Rosco's rig tuning technique. Make sure you have a bloody big hammer available - you will need it to drive that huge nail thing somewhere.
The final day of the event was forecast to have a lighter wind, but the easterly had other ideas. There was a mixture of A, B+ and B rigs on the boats throughout the day. The difficulty was that the gusts were bulletting across the lake, making control of the boat more important than lots of sail area when it went light. The B and B+ rigs were OK on the Sangas and B6's. The Diamonds were still able to handle their A rigs making for some interesting sailing.
Roger Paul started out Day 2 with the Diamond going very well, and he had the top boats in his sights. Nobody really took the scoreboard by the scruff of the neck and made their position solid. Glenn built on his overnight lead, but as the day wore on, found some inconsistency creeping into his results. ROsco was not quite close enough to pounce, but a few more races may have changed that.
Dave Thomas showed signs of real speed - especially when he changed down to his B rig. The control Dave had over his boat with the smaller rig meant he could sail through the gusts with speed, without losing too much in the lulls.
John Gower continued to sail consistently with his new Sanga. His performance along with that of Mat Donelly was great to see. Mat ended up winning 4 heats, and was especially fast in the lighter conditions. Unfortunately, some boat damage put paid to his push but the promise of the boat was pleasing to see.
In the end, Glenn held off a fast finishing Rosco, relegating him back to bridesmaid status. John Gower held off Roger Paul to record his first podium finish.
We would like to thank a large contingent of volunteers who came along to allow us all to sail. Bruce Robins had a really easy time of Race Officer on Monday and Tuesday, but the easterly made him work his tail off to try and get reasonable courses. Pretty hard when there are such big changes in direction. Bruce stuck to the task all week, and we thank him for all his efforts.
Andree Bennett, Mary Davis and Jackie Hunter kept socre all week, and we thank them for their brilliant and very accurate scorekeeping. Rob Mews provided support to Bruce and the skippers by operating the rescue boat all week. He was kept very busy shifting marks on Thursday and Friday as well as recovering a few stray boats from time to time. Thank you Rob.
Many other WA members came along to help make sure the work was spread around including Bruce Quail, Rod Moss, Adam Viney, Peter Buchanan, Hunter Gillies and Max Hunter. Moby Stuart generally kept us entertained as well as taking plenty of photos and videos. I apologise if I have omitted anyone, but the spirit of all the guys in WA was certainly evident.
The RSAWA is to be congratulated for the efficient running of the event. Peter Buchanan headed the administrative effort with great communication and organisation. Rosco provided the Race HQ, Adam Viney and Chris Woods looked after the RSAWA trailer making sure it arrived with all the equipment daily. Thank you to all those guys.