A Class Summer Scratch Round 1

A bit of a cooler day today, but was a good one for a thorough test of the A Class yachts before the Nationals start in three days time.

A few sailors turned up a bit earlier for Nats preparations. Flag pole sorted, competiton buoys laid, gazeebos checked and repairs planned on the one that needs some TLC.

Tide today was very low. So much so that the floating pontoon was not floating at any point in the day.

Back to the yachts, Kyle had a new boat to test out in competiton after the "soft launch" last week. Mike and Lisa had new sails to sort out as well. Phil had the first sail of his new (2nd hand) A, John continued testing out his A and Lester Pearson visited for some testing of the Elwick Bay waters.

Stu and Les got us away close to the start time. Some allowance made (thanks) for my running around with buoy placements and helping others get their boats ready.

We used the competiton course as best we could without a boat being out there to adjust (which will be available throughout the nationals). After a while, we saw that races were under ten minutes, so the two lap course was pushed to three.

Michael was having a really good day, but could only sail for about an hour, Firsts, seconds and a 3rd showed he will be up the pointy end this coming week.

We did have an amount of attrition towards the end of the day, with John breaking a jib boom, Phil's battery died  and Kyle lost a jib sheet prior to the last race.

In all though it was a solid hit out with 6 of the 7 yachts getting at least one podium finish in.

In the end, Kyle came away with the round win. Very happy with the performance of the new build, winning the day on 13 points - all 1's and 2's after the drops. A very consistent day.

Second place was Lisa Blackwood, 3 behind on 16 points. Mostly consistent day and the boat was very fast, but a few mistakes cost dearly in the end.

Third place was Rod Marshall, on 26 points. Never far behind and took advantage on multiple occasions when the boat in front made a mistake or didn't quite see the wind shift coming.

Big thanks to Les, Stu and Ray today for doing the RO work for a great tune up in preparation for the Nationals.

Coming up

Wednesday is the start of the ARYA Nationals with A Class racing (12-14 Feb), followed by IOM (15-18 Feb), RM's (19-21 Feb) and finally the 10R's (22-24 Feb).

Racing starts at 10 most days till 6 with the exception of each class' last day which will finish at 1pm. The A Class and 10R are likely to finish by the end of the second day with maximum races sailed.

Please get along to see the action if you can. It's a great opportunity to see the best in Australia sailing.

Kyle