ZHIK regatta at Sunshine

A great weekend at Sunshine, South Lake Macquarie. Lovely warm weather and a nice 12-15kt wind both days.

This was a mixed class yardstick regatta for single handed dinghies. The moths were in div 3 with Hayden's IC sailing three laps, while divs 1 and 2 included Spirals, Sabres, Contenders, Impulses and OKs and they all sailed 2 laps. Latest VYC posted yardsticks were used with the lap count included in the calculation.

The slow boats started first so it got pretty crowded at the first top mark. Then once past we sailed by ourselves for a lap and then caught them again on our third lap. At least it kept the fleet in the same wind as much as possible and sailing over a similar time span, things that matter in yardstick calculations. But the wind was so consistant it probably did not matter much.

We had 11 moths from St George, Balmoral plus Ben from Woollahra and Rod Ray down from Qld. The other classes were well represented by champions and top sailors. Total fleet was about 55.

In perfect foiling conditions the Moths went very well. Dave Lister was fastest and was I think first to finish in 3 races (having a gear failure in the 4th), meaning he passed all the other classes twice. In the last race he lapped Hayden Virture sailing the fastest IC in the country. Hayden commented that even sailing his older slower boat last year at McCrae against top ACats he had never been lapped before.

When Saturday's results were posted it was obvious that this fleet of moths were sailing a lot faster than the VYC rating. Moths filled the top 8 places by big margins. The other discrepancy was that the three Bladeriders were given the lower rating of 79 instead of the foiler moth rating of 83. This shuffled Rod and Alister down the list a little and it seems illogical to split the class this way.

Regardless the top guys were sailing about 10 minutes faster than the rating in a race well shorter than an hour. (Sorry I do not have the numbers in front of me). Dave beat me by 10 minutes and I beat all the other classes on VYC.

The VYC yardsticks are developed from mixed class racing results around Aust. There is very little of this racing in NSW, especially in summer, so I suspect that the ratings come from the days when Rohan was sailing in Melbourne club and regatta races. The 83 Moth rating would be how fast he was going when he had his last Prowler, and the 79 BR rating would be from when he began racing and promoting BR.

It looks like in these conditions a number more like 70-72 would be appropriate.

Back to the racing: Rod was closest to Dave with Ben and, in the races he sailed, Luka on his brand new Prowler not far back. There was some good racing in the bunch with places changing due to bad tacks or gybes. There is not much variation in actual boat speed.

I had some good bouts with Lea and Alister and ended up 5th overall.

Well done SLMASC.