After a couple of days of running between accommodation and scrambling to houses and pubs that have the football games on satellite, I’ve got some time to sit down and wrap up the Aussie Nationals.
Six days of racing spread over the New Years week certainly allowed a wide variety of conditions over the sandbars on the south side of Port Phillip Bay. The “cool change” southerlies off the Bass Strait and the very hot easterlies off Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsulas provided a solid backdrop for 12 races in 8 to 25 knots of breeze but choppy, current affected racecourses.
Nearly three hundred Lasers, Radials and Laser 4.7s came out for the regatta largely Australian, but for reference the nine of the top ten in the Laser fleet were internationals. The 45 boat 4.7 fleet was remarkmablly large, but in windier venues apparently the fleets are quite large down here. The Lasers had about 120 turn up, not uncommon for the mid-summer holiday events, but a large portion of the fleet was made up of masters sailors getting ready for their world championships happening after ours in Terrigal in February. Another significant portion of the group was the internationals getting ready for our own worlds in two weeks.
I entered the gold fleet racing in the top ten and managed a couple of nice comebacks and a couple of nice races for a 12, 5, 10, 1. The first two races were in relatively heavy air and the latter two in light 5-10 knot conditions. I finished up 5th overall of the 120 boats here. So two events down and two more to go here in Oz.
Today is for football cheering on the Chargers on the satellite feed. Tomorrow is for loading up ande heading up the bay for Sail Melbourne and the Asia-Pacific Champs next week. - http://campbellsailing.com
Six days of racing spread over the New Years week certainly allowed a wide variety of conditions over the sandbars on the south side of Port Phillip Bay. The “cool change” southerlies off the Bass Strait and the very hot easterlies off Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsulas provided a solid backdrop for 12 races in 8 to 25 knots of breeze but choppy, current affected racecourses.
Nearly three hundred Lasers, Radials and Laser 4.7s came out for the regatta largely Australian, but for reference the nine of the top ten in the Laser fleet were internationals. The 45 boat 4.7 fleet was remarkmablly large, but in windier venues apparently the fleets are quite large down here. The Lasers had about 120 turn up, not uncommon for the mid-summer holiday events, but a large portion of the fleet was made up of masters sailors getting ready for their world championships happening after ours in Terrigal in February. Another significant portion of the group was the internationals getting ready for our own worlds in two weeks.
I entered the gold fleet racing in the top ten and managed a couple of nice comebacks and a couple of nice races for a 12, 5, 10, 1. The first two races were in relatively heavy air and the latter two in light 5-10 knot conditions. I finished up 5th overall of the 120 boats here. So two events down and two more to go here in Oz.
Today is for football cheering on the Chargers on the satellite feed. Tomorrow is for loading up ande heading up the bay for Sail Melbourne and the Asia-Pacific Champs next week. - http://campbellsailing.com
