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No doubt it was a gruelling day today, a wrap up will follow. Day one of the State Champs for A Class radio yachts presented exactly as forecast, windy. Concurrently, the first three placegetters at the end of day one became the podium winners in the annual *Herb Tyson Memorial regatta. With boats representing NW, North, Risdon Brook and the Huon club, it was set to be a statewide competition. The boats varied in sail area depending on the length of their waterline so it was no surprise that short waterline big sail boats were going to struggle in the blustery conditions. Surprisingly, no one changed to smaller sails such was the hectic pace of the day. Attrition took its toil with a few yachts suffering gear damage. PRO Ken Dobbie called the day off early due to the ever increasing winds and safety concerns for the rescue boat crew. What is interesting is, that this is the venue for the 2018 Nationals, and over time it is becoming obvious that all conditions may be experienced next year. So it will be a fair call whoever are the winners in the respective classes. Lisa Blackwood just scraped in to win from long time ‘A’ arch rivals John Cole Cook and Michael Hickman. Lisa first won this event in 1979, almost 40 years ago. It was commented that the A class is still the nicest boat of all classes to sail so it is hoped a resurgence of the class will come to fruition with several new boats in production. *Herb Tyson was the original Tasmanian ‘A’ State champion and a founding member of RBRYC.  Well, a good day at Montose with 12 DF95's fronting the starter in a soft NW breeze & a difficult lazy slop.
Good boat handling was the order of the day with Tony Brewer going very well in the first half of the morning. The breeze began to soften & then shift more to the west but at least the waves died down making for much easier conditions. David Jones & the Silver Fox (36) began to sneak up the reults in the latter half of the morning but at the end of racing David just managed to squeak in on 39 points from Richard Barwick 1 point behind, then Colin Johnson 46 points, Tony Brewer 47 points, Phil Turnbull 49 points, Cliff 50 points. As the RO I must appologise for rather eratic race management today, with Wayne B busy placing marks for the A class regatta this weekend plus a few visitors who needed attention things did not go very smoothly however from todays visitors from the RYCT we now have an invitation to do some demonstration sailing of the DF95's at the RYCT before Christmas. I must thank John Gard ( our newest member )who I roped in to help with RO duties. With the summer series approaching & our fleet expending we will impliment a better handicap system which should make the racing fairer. Andrew A last the Marblehead skippers had a great day on Sunday. A small crew but a wonderful Nor Wester made the day. It is great to see Cookie at the helm again with his beautiful Scalpel. The results speak for themselves. Welcome back Cookie.  Well I suggested that there was to be a bit of wind today and wind we got. Some early good scratch racing the into our handicap events. The first 2 races with A rig then down to B rig and the last 2 races Cig. More new faces (or new to me anyway) boosted our fleet to 13 , not bad considering the forecast. Our winner to day was Graham Lane 9 points, Ray Joyce 8 points, Chris Wood 7 points, Stuart Harris & John Banks 6 points, Phillip Turnbull, Andrew Wardrop & Rod Gavin 5 points, Geoff Matthews & Peter Darcy 4 points, Dennis Lees 3 points, Rod Marshall 2 points and Wayne Turner 1 point. Next week I will be in Brisbane So Stuart Harris has volunteered to be in charge for the day. My thanks to Dave Murfet for the start/finish duties again. Regards John Banks Wednesday coordinator.  A light and fluky day with some solid A rig conditions later for Round 7 of the IOM Scratch series. Thanks to David Murfet for managing the PRO duties on a difficult day to set a fair course. It was great to see Peter Darcey coming out of winter hibernation and making an appearance, he caused many skippers keeping an eye out for what the 'SilverFox' was up to. Stuart Harris did a great job with his beautiful wooden Corby 5 to get 3rd place on the day. ] At times his upwind speed was impressive, and we can expect to see more of the same in the future. Michael Hickman dominated the day with great skill to pick the right zephyrs most of the time and Ray Joyce was runner up. Some boat gossip is that Ray Joyce has a new Britpop on the way and has sold his Britpop to John Cole-Cook. Peter Sylvester is expecting his new V10 anytime soon, so things are hotting up for some keen IOM racing in anticipation of the 2018 nationals. regards, Chris  Wednesday was a pleasant day at the dam with a soft to moderate wind from the north west with some swings around the compass.
After a lengthy holiday on the big island Peter Sylvester returned to Wednesday sailing and won the bottle wine with 10 points. Snapping at his heels were John Hall, Stuart Harris and John Banks on 9 points. Phillip Turnbull was next on 8 points followed by Andrew Wardrop on 7 points. Wayne Turner had 5 points, Peter Ameron and Wayne Behrens had 4 points with Rod Marshall and Rob Gavin next on 2 points. Geoff Matthews finished with 1 point. Progress points: John Banks 60, Stuart Harris 55, Wayne Turner 47, Ray Joyce 37, Wayne Behrens 35, John Smith 29, Andrew Wardrop & Dennis Lees 28, Phillip Turnbull 27, John Hall 23, Ted Laing 21, Don McLoud & Lisa Blackwood 20, Ron Marshall 18, Tony Brewer 17, Peter Ameron & David Russell 14, Peter Sylvester 10, Chris wood 9, Peter Darcy 3, Rob Gavin 2 and Geoff Mathews 1. There are only 3 weeks left for the Winter series. Sailors who have not ventured out during the Winter series should get your boats out and dusted off ready for the Spring series starting the first Wednesday in September. Regards John Banks Wednesday Race Co-ordinator |