Sorry it has been a little while since the last blog. Life has been a bit busy. Well, you can see the results on the website, but I can offer a few other tidbits on the NSW State Titles. I have to admit, Phil and I only sailed on the Friday (1st heat), followed by family time for the balance of the weekend, but we also attended the AGM after the first day's racing. Hopefully some brave soul will email me with some more "war stories" from the series which we can add into the blog!
Anyway, Hugh and Tom didn't do anything surprising: they blitzed the field. Must have been interesting to break a new carbon mast 100m from the finish which would have given them a perfect scoresheet!! We came second to them in the Friday race, by a narrow 6-minute margin (!). We never got within coo-ee of them. They had a perfect start, we had a shocker, which was compounded by an interesting encounter with our old mate Kerry Beatty ("Blew True") at the top mark the first time. Ever tried doing a 360 in the midst of a rolling swell, 15 knots of breeze and boats scooting around you in various states of limited control? No, we hadn't either until that point. The ride to the first wing mark was "exciting", up around North Head, with the swell even steeper and the wind even stronger. For us non-Balmoralers, this was a character-building experience.
The great news was that there was wind for most of the series. Yee-haa!! A great antidote to the lack thereof at the Nationals and for most of the season, for that matter! I have added a couple of photos at the bottom of this post, just to to whet your appetite and show what an MG can do when there is wind!
A couple of bits from the weekend that I know about:
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Carnage!!: Aside from Carbon Neutral breaking its mast, the Mansfields from Toronto in Flame Boy apparently struck disaster on the second day, breaking a mast and tearing the main. I feel for Brian and Lara. They have certainly experienced some interesting damage over the past season or so, including a whole rig which is now lying on the bottom of Lake Macquarie somewhere! The other Toronto flag-flyers, Bob and Hayden in Filthy Fase, also did some sail damage. I think the fleet will be a little depleted this coming Saturday.
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Hitting the Podium: On a personal note, I want to congratulate the Filthy Fase boys, our local rivals and good friends, who are always threatening among the leaders, but their second overall constitutes their highest series finish so far. Well done, guys! And then, outgoing President Gary Reeves and Alex Warner in Xanadu (St George) matched their 3rd in the Nationals with a 3rd in the States. Given that they had not sailed as a team together since New Year, in challenging conditions, was a great testament to them. And, as mentioned before, Hugh and Tom gave us all a lesson and we are all thinking about how we can show them some competition next season!
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Sea Sickness: "Cat and Mouse", sailed by Jim Reeder and Mark Collins, made the journey from Canberra, which was great to see. A couple of new faces, I didn't really get the chance to say hello before the first race, but afterwards I caught up with Jim. He noted that they had to retire, because Mark got a bad case of sea sickness out in the Sound. If you're used to Lake Burley Griffin, no wonder!! Anyway, they kept going for the series which is great to see.
So, here are a couple of photos!
