Join in the only regatta in the world in which the crew can win a car each!
The Manly Mini Festival of Sailing will be held over two days on January 21st and 22nd 2012 at Manly Yacht Club, Sydney and there are no less than six, yes six, mini cars up for grabs.
The mini regatta is open to all mono hull yachts whose length overall is greater than 6m and less than 11m, so join the Manly Mini Festival of Sailing and prove for once and for all, that size doesn’t matter, it’s what you do with it over a series of 6 windward leeward type races in northern Sydney Harbour, that counts.
It’s from such humble beginnings that many of the worlds’ greatest regatta’s were born.
Too long the rock stars and their 100m yachts have been hogging the airwaves. Too many owners have driven away in the car that the crew won. If you have a small yacht then sail up and be counted amongst the greats of this inaugural festival where each member of the crew can walk away with a car prize.
As well as the cars, there is an overall prize of 2 Nights at Pittwater YHA up for grabs along with the coveted Horses Ass Trophy and a variety of crew prizes such as the hotly contested Teabag award for the best foredecky. But best of all is the opportunity to sail into the history books as one of the founding entrants of the Manly Mini Festival of Sailing.
Notice of Race can be found at http://www.myc.org.au/racing/mini/mr.shtml. A barbecue will be held after racing on Saturday at Manly Yacht Club and a prize presentation after racing on Sunday. For queries or further information contact the race director Chris Stockdale on info@manlysailing.com.au
In view of Hugo’s MOB retrieval event last Saturday Peter Stevens has shown us what might be the perfect simple device which Doug McGain developed for Code Violation before Pete bought it. This device consists of a length of rope run though the middle of a pool ‘noodle’ with a clip on the end, this can then be connected to either a sheet for easy pulling or a haliyard for lifting. I think this would be suitable for anyone that is conscious and able to put it over their heads and under their arms. It would also be relatively easy to throw towards someone in the water. The cost of such a device would be no more than $20 bucks. If owners wish to purchase a fully spliced unit, Pete will work out a price for all J24 owners. Weight of this device is less than 1kg.
The 2011 Lipton Cup was sailed in true Port Philip conditions, from 10 knot North Easterly, through to 30 knot South Westerly on Saturday. Mix this with blinding rain that persisted all day, and you have conditions that test the best of us. Fortunately the weather improved on the Sunday however most of the fleet stayed on shore, as the previous day was enough.
Simon Grain and Lisa Simonov won the regatta with 4 straight wins, their boat Make My Jay, was quick, well sailed and when required picked shifts that pulled them up through the fleet to win yet another race.
There was another event that took place that day that made me feel 1, glad that our crew competed (as we only decided to sail the previous day) and 2, that I sailed such a great boat as a J24.
In the third race the wind had turned to the South west and kicked in at recorded 30 knots. After a screaming downwind run with the spinnakers Simon and I rounded the bottom mark together, back on the wind, we sailed lower and both boats were about ten boat lengths apart on port tack with Simon slightly astern and to windward.
My crew alerted me that there was a boat from another division that was on starboard and hardly moving, we bore away and as we passed astern we could see that the boat was a mess with her headsail half furled and two crew occupied with something going on in the open cockpit. The boat’s crew shouted “we have a man overboard”, which sent a shock right through the whole of our crew, we replied “where”, one pointed directly down wind. Through the blinding rain we could just see a tiny black shape about 200 meters away.
Jack on the bow tripped the jib, and kept his eyes firmly on the MOB, whilst Matt eased the vang and Michael readied the life ring, the MOB was waving his arm and as we approached we assured him and asked him to keep calm.
Our first pass was too quick and we felt that the wind was too strong to throw the life ring as it would never have made it. Our second pass, much slower allowed the MOB to swim to the windward side of the J where it took all three of my crew to get him on board.
Dominic was ash white, shaking and exhausted, we put him down in the cabin where Jack kept a eye on him. It was only then that I looked around to see that through the rain the only other boat I could see was the stricken yacht, no one else was in sight.
The stricken yacht had managed to bare away and was able to run down wind some distance away, we both headed to the nearest harbour at RYCV.
Dominic advised us that there was a injured crew on the other yacht and that the events that caused his injury had caused his fall from the boat.
I estimate that Dominic would have been in the water for a minimum of ten to fifteen minutes, we were concerned that he might be effected by shock so I got Jack to keep eye on his condition all the whole way home.
J24’s are great to sail in tight windy conditions, their low free board made getting Dominic on board much easier, and the speed in which we could do a second pass, took some of the panic out of the situation. Had we been in a much bigger boat, this MOB rescue would have been much harder and taken a lot longer, of that I am sure.
When we entered to harbour, the stricken yacht managed to get assistance from a rescue boat who rushed the injured crew to a waiting ambulance.
After we had docked we were met by the crew of the other yacht who thanked us and advised us that they could never have been able to pick up Dominic.
Lessons learnt were, 1: the stricken yacht should have sent off a flare. 2: radioed for assistanc.e 3: waved their arms to alert us or others. However, there were only two of them and one was preoccupied looking after the third injured crew. Makes sailing a four man keelboat hard in 30 knots single handed.
On reflection, my crew and I agreed that we had all had a rewarding and special day, as no one else knew Dominic was out there until we reported what had happened when we came ashore. We later learnt that the race was shortened due to the wind strength and reduced vision of 100 meters.
Special thanks to Jack Crawford, Matt Weston and Michael Lewenhagen, crew of Bruschetta VI.
Hugo.N.Ottaway.
Note from Simon Grain. Hugo’s actions quite probably saved Dominic’s life on Saturday. The visibility was terrible with heavy driving rain, rising seas and lots of spray making looking to windward almost impossible and painful. This might have meant that no other boat would have seen him in the water. This is a very sobering thought, as losing a crew member overboard can happen in the blink of an eye to any of us on the water in these conditions. Make sure you practice your man overboard retrieval in all kinds of weather. Hugo was awarded redress and scored an equal first place in this race and came second overall in the Lipton Cup.
We have 2 teams representing Australia at the J24 World Championships this year. David West will be skippering Cinco Capitanes..yes, you guessed it…with 5 skippers on board…..Davids crew are Arthur Crothers, Scott Buckingham, Chris Lee and Greg Zyner.
Sean Kirkjian will also be racing with his Deathstar team of Tony Reynolds, Simon Cunningham, Tim Bilham and David Oliver.
Has anyone had problerms with outhaul cleats slipping?.. I have sailed on a few Js lately and all seem to have the same problem or the outhaul slipping under load, when the cleat teeth don’t necessarily appear to be worn.
I would be grateful if anyone has any suggestions for an alternate system so I can pass the information to the owners.
Most of the time the fleet saw this view of Pacemaker
David Suda and his crew in Pacemaker did an awesome job winning the NSW States convincingly.
For the rest of the story in pictures of the first day, go to the picture gallery page under the NSW tab above.
On behalf of the Yacht Club Argentino, it is my pleasure to invite you and all the competitors for the J-24 World Championship to our club at Buenos Aires City.
The Yacht Club Argentino was founded in 1884, and has a long tradition of major sailing events and it is very proud of its Race Committee experience and its reputation of great hospitality.
We are excited at this opportunity to once again welcome the World’s best sailors to one of the world’s very best fresh waters venue, the waters of the Rio de la Plata.
Sincerely
Ricardo A. Galarce
Commodore
That is the online welcome from the club Commodore.
Australia has two crews entering the worlds, skippers are David West and Sean Kirkjian and on behalf of the Australian J24 Association we wish them good luck.
We will bring you more information on their progress as we get it.
J24 Tips for speed by North Sails J 24 class experts
North Sails has been at the forefront of sail design for the J/24 class since the class first started in 1977. Throughout these years North Sails have designed and developed J24 sails which have won countless national and world titles with sailors choosing to use North sails.
North Sails have gone through a restructuring exercise recently. They are wanting to put more focus on One Design racing and will provide more tips on a regular basis – of course they would also like to sell you some sails as well !
Below are some key points from their class experts on how to maximise your J 24’s performance!
What a weekend?…5 boats from VIC making the huge effort to come to Gosford. 4 boats from Pacific Sailing School with instructors skippering and students, some very new to the sport on board! Terry Wise skippering Bandit!! Some of the old die hard fleet returning for more hot racing!
Saturday giving us blue skies and a light breeze oscilating up to 50 degrees at times….difficult for most!! Sunday was another story…torrential rain for the first race, coupled with a breeze most reckon was up to 35knots at times…tough conditions that saw just 8 of the original 15 boats race the final race of the day as one by one we saw J’s heading back towards the club!!
Gosford Sailing Club gave us the intended 4 races each day – an achievement in itself given the appaling conditions Sunday brought!..’Pure adrenalin’, ‘survival mode’…and ‘the reason we go racing’ were phrases that were bandied around back at the club….I think one member of Kaotic might have also mentioned ‘wet’ ..and that wasn’t the rain!
The results below say it all….a very competitive fleet…5 of the race wins going to current VIC Champion David Suda on Pacemaker, Sean Kirkjian, current National champion took out the other 3 firsts! They were strongly contended by many of the other boats though and competition couldn’t have been closer at times!
I am proud to be part of this fleet…and mostly…very proud to get through a State Championships and see not one red flag…and not one prang!! Well done everyone and thanks! Also, a big thank you to Gosford Sailing Club for hosting a great regatta yet again, and also to our sponsor, UVEX for providing great prizes once more.
