KA Sails Vic Grand Prix - Round Two

Round two of the KA Sails Victorian Grand Prix was held at Mornington YC, location for the upcoming nationals.  Unfortunately numbers were down a bit with many away, injured or with broken boats.  Never the less the days racing was particularly eventful.

In a similar fashion to round one we picked a day with plenty of rain and some very fickle winds, at least until we went sailing.  On a personal note as I went to put my foils in I noticed that my push rod had snapped off at the base.  I showed Amac and he said 'you'll be right it just means your flap won't go up so just avoid the big waves'.  I looked at at the building south westerly and thought of the forecast which was 'squalls in excess of 30 knots with the thunderstorms' and thought yeah right, shouldn't be too hard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7nv9DWZvts
Footage from Richards Go Pro, having trouble linking it properly, but this should work


We all went out, sailed past the pier and out of the protection of the harbour and got smashed!  The combination of the wind strength, which was above twenty and the waves, meant it was too dangerous downwind.  The race committee was then kind enough to set us another course much closer to shore, where we were able to seek the protection of the harbour.  The conditions were still bumpy in certain areas of the course, but very sailable.

Race one saw Amac take the win with Leigh (me) taking second and Richard in third.  Race two was a bit more eventful with Richard rounding the top mark in first with Amac close behind in second.  After Richard parked not far past the top mark Amac had to crash to miss him, causing damage to his boat and finishing his day.  I managed to find the passing lane on the final run and finished just ahead of Richard on the line (much to Richard disgust, as seen in the footage).  Kohie came through to take third.

We then had to sail back in in what was now gusting to 30 knots, which made for a tough sail in.  A special mention has to go to Kohie who sailed well in the very difficult conditions.  Thanks also to KA Sails and Racer X Marine for their support of the event.

Footage from the slalom run - Sail Melbourne

Richard has done a great job piecing together some footage from his Go Pro.  This video shows about 15 knots and bumpy seas.  This was our practice run of the slalom course mentioned in the previous post and after this and particularly the following race it filled in to twenty and the seas became much less manageable.

Nice work Richie!

Exhibition Racing - Sail Melbourne (bit on!)

The Victorian Moth fleet was asked to sail a short course series at Sandringham as part of the Olympic classes Sail Melbourne series.

The fleet included Richard Jackson, Paul Fleming, Andrew McDougall, James Owen-Smith, Kohei, Leigh Dunstan (me) and a guest appearance from New Zealand 49er sailor and moth champ Peter Burling, borrowing Martin boat.  Rohan Veal ran the racing and did a fantastic job.

It's hard to paint a picture of how challenging the conditions were, with 18-20 knots blowing across the short slalom course with typical Port Phillip waves of close to 1m.  The challenging part was the second and fourth buoys of the course were set 20-30m off a rock wall, to enhance the spectator appeal, with people looking down on the course from a balcony just above the bottom marks.  What made things really interesting though was as you came closer to the rock wall the water became much shallower so the waves stood up out of no where and chaos followed at almost all of these mark roundings.  These mark rounding also saw some serious near misses, with only inches in it.  The course was also set to maximise speed with most downwind legs having to be sailed at much higher angles than Moth are normally expected to sail.  I know my top speed was 24 knots, which isn't massive, but you park a rock wall in front of you when your doing that speed and the experience is certainly much more intense than it would normally be.

I can't actually remember how many races we had, as it's pretty much a blur of constant crashes and carnage, I think it was four or five.  The day belonged to Andrew McDougall who won all but the first race that I won.

A special mention has to go out to James who went out thinking it was a good idea to wear wetty shorts on Port Phillip Bay.  Unfortunately he did what I did a couple of years ago and ripped the back of his leg open on the chain plate.  

Thanks again to Rohan and Sandgringham YC for putting on some of the most intense racing any of us have ever been a part of.