The 2012 Western Cape dinghy championships were once again held in Saldanha bay over the Easter weekend. SBYC was represented in the Flying 15 class, with five of the eight entries from the club. The organisers arranged for sailing on two courses, with the westerly one in front of Saldanha holiday resort hosting the oppies, mirrors, RS terras and 470’s. On the easterly course to the north of seven blinders were the 29ers, 505’s, flying 15’s, finns, lasers, sonnets and dabbies.
Hats off to the bridge crew and mark layers for keeping their wits about them with all these boats and classes to keep track of.
Prior to the regatta Alastair turned every stone to find a crew, coming up empty handed. At the last minute Andrew Bews agreed to join him, but was not available for the Saturday due to work commitments. Pieter von Bredow had been working hard to train an enthusiastic Dirkie van Vurren in the art flying 15 sailing. Steve Hegerstrom had flown down from Durban to bolster the fleet and was sailing Alastair’s turquoise boat with Drew Jarvis as crew for the regatta. Luke Rademan kindly made his boats available to fireball sailors Ryan Avery and Janine Mare sailing under the MAC banner, and to Paul Dennet and Chris Pace from FBYC. The remaining three boats were regular crews from SBYC, Trsitan Bews and Phillip Rebel, Anton Nel and Chris Peart and finally Michael and Heidi Kavanagh.
Ironically the Southerly winds and sunny skies that we sail in for most of the year were to be replaced by the nor’wester and rain as a front dominated the weekend weather. This levelled the playing field for all. With a combination of oscillating offshore breeze and perpetual shifts as the days progressed, reading the wind was to be a key skill in the regatta. In addition with so many boats and classes on the course at the same time, finding lanes of clear air would prove invaluable.
The race committee cleverly used two windward and two leeward marks with an offset mark in between to separate those fleets coming off the start line, those in the middle of the race and those approaching the finish. Early in the regatta this challenged the leading boat on more than one occasion, with our friends from Durban even sailing around the wrong mark in race three and Heidi and Michael beating to the wrong weather mark in race 6.
On Friday morning prior to the first race, Heidi was seen fine sanding and polishing the bottom of Femme Fatale, a routine that she diligently pursued every morning before racing. This diligence was to pay off and together with a new Quantum main and spinnaker Femme Fatale proved to have extra legs on the fleet as she took the winners hooter in all nine races.
The battle for second was to be an intense affair between Pieter von Bredow and Steve Heggerstrom. Steve had the upper hand on day 1, Pieter on day 2, honours were about even on day 3 and with just one race on day 4 Pieter needed to finish ahead of Steve to claim second in the regatta. A thrilling start saw the two boats together with Pieter just to leeward of Steve. In typical von Bredow fashion, he was able to find that little bit of extra height and forced Steve to tack. From there Pieter was able to cover him for the rest of the race and took second in the race and overall.
Throughout the regatta Tristan showed signs of moving to the next level as he mixed it with the older hands. Despite an unfortunate DSQ in an incident with a 29er, he and Phillip claimed a well-deserved fourth place in the regatta. Alastair only completed five of the nine races, with Andrew mysteriously spraining his ankle in the last race while they were competing at the front of the fleet. Despite this he finished in fifth place overall having claimed a mixture of second, third and fourth place finishes in the races he did complete. Ryan and Janine took sixth, while Anton and Chris sailed better and were much closer to the fleet than their seventh place finish suggested. Paul and Chris from FBYC rounded out the fleet.
A huge thank you to all the organisers, your efforts are highly appreciated. Also thank you to the SBYC commodore and members who worked tirelessly all weekend, helping competitors get their boats in and out of the water and ensuring that the club was a fitting host to our guests. Judging by the level of interest in learning more about boat speed, strategy and tactics, the quality of our sailing is improving and bodes well for some competitive racing next season.