Nationals Day Three

A tough day on the water today with Southerly winds of 22-28 knots and big seas – hard work up wind but great surfing downwind.
Only two races were sailed with the third being canned when in the starting sequence, I think many were quite glad to be going back to the marina.
Dave Suda, ‘The Black Prince of Sandringham’ showed his mettle again today with two wins from Simon Grain and Steve Girdis in a tie for second in the first race and from Simon Grain and then Steve Girdis in the second race. Brendan Lee was 4th in both races. Brendan and Dave were both very fast upwind today with Jet picking up the places downwind.
‘Mr J24’ Hugo Ottaway in Bruschetta VI, Robyn Coombs in Hyperactive, Ron Thomson the new National President in Kicking and Dave McKay in Stockcar are the bunch fighting out the placings from 5th to 8th, all pretty close on points and it’s anyone’s final placing in this group.
Of particular note is John Neville in Vice Versa currently lying in 9th and sailing very well, consistent placings have given John his best Nationals position so far – well done John.
Up to yesterday the Thommo Cup was alive and well with equal numbers of wins to both Janette and Ron, but today’s stronger conditions have seen Ron take two wins off Janette, tomorrow’s forecast lighter conditions may suite Janette more. This is the first Nationals the two have battled it out in their own boats, so tomorrow will be an eagerly anticipated climax to this battle.
There are the usual hard luck stories on windy days and Peter Lee’s day came to an abrupt end with the kite and Fitzy’s head being trashed. Fitzy is getting stitches in the Sandy Hospital but is basically ok it appears – hard head !
There are a few skippers licking their unexpected placings at the back end of the fleet. Just remember guys you are in a classy even if smaller fleet than we would like and the boats further up the food chain are not going to give anything away. It’s tough and getting tougher.
A belated welcome to Zibo Madej from CYCSA in Adelaide with a crew of Chinese from Shanghai, not everyone speaks English on the boat, so it is a vertical learning curve for the crew and in today’s conditions it must have been hard work. Well done Zibo and thanks for coming to the regatta, with more practice and time I hope we will see you again and further up the fleet.
The handicap placings are very similar with Dave Suda leading from Simon Grain, Steve Girdis, Brendan Lee and Hugo Ottaway. Not quite sure why that is but the details on both One Design and Handicap are to be found here
If you have regatta stories that we can publish on the website as part of the Nationals coverage please talk to me – we all like to read different points of view.