Author: Beth

A very successful 10^th Australian RC Laser National Titles were sailed at Mawson Lakes, South Australia from Friday 28^th September to Monday 1^st October 2018.  The titles were sailed in good weather with moderate to light breezes and the conduct of sailors was excellent. It was great to have two New Zealanders competing in an Australian national title – Graham Watson and Linton Little.

The first day started with a light and variable south-westerly, and the seeding races were all sailed on A rigs and were won by Scott Mitchell, Roman Wenger and Graham Watson. By the end of the next set of heats, most sailors were down to B rigs and Scott Fleming after advancing from B division to A division showed everyone a clean set of heels. Scott together with Scott Mitchell continued to dominate for the rest of the day as the wind steadily increased to 15 knots.

Some sailors had their first experience of A division sailing including Stephen Cibich, Darren Cathie and John Nieuwenhuizen. Graham Watson completed a race with a disintegrating B mast – and still won – an amazing feat. In C division some great racing was taking place between the likes of John Berry, Gary Hein, Noel Christison, Linton Ward and David Woolner. Cliff Bromiley had a good day, showing some great boat speed in B division.

By Sunday the wind had swung 180 degrees to the north-east and B rigs were the choice of the day. Graham Brown had some excellent races in the morning and began to present a threat to Scott Fleming’s dominance. Noel McPherson also sailed well during the morning with some high placings in A division. Brad Hein began to work his way into contention after what had been a difficult first day for him, and Peter Burford sailed consistently all day. By the last two races A rigs began to appear in the fleet, but Scott Fleming’s two firsts in the A division heats all but sealed his win for the series.

The wind remained in the north during Monday morning with big shifts due to a left-hand breeze coming from NNW and a right-hand breeze coming from the north-east. It was hard to pick which breeze was going to dominate on the first windward work and most sailors had a difficult race where they picked the wrong side of the start line. I remember seeing Graham Brown get caught at the leeward end of the line as the wind swung north-east, and then watching him work hard to recover.

In the middle of the day the wind slowly moved to the west causing a delay in sailing, and then later dropped to very light conditions for the last race. Lindsay Sawyer, Rob O’Brien and Bob Whitehead spent all or most of the day in A division, and Noel Christison had a brief foray in A division as well. John Berry and Don Turnbull enjoyed some time in B division with Don having his best day for the series. Brad Hein sailing in A division, corrected a horror finish where he failed to sail through the finish line in the second last race with a win in the last race.

Congratulations go to Scott Fleming, Graham Brown, Scott Mitchell, Peter Burford and Brad Hein for filling the top five places.

It was a great event. Thanks to Johno Johnson and Mario Gulic as race officers. Mario Gulic, Lorraine Berry and Jayne Fleming did the scoring. Stewart Ross set the courses. The rescue boat crews included Dean Bonnett, Peter Simmons, Brian Marshall and Roger Wilkey. Other helpers included Barry Jones, Sue Hayter, Yvonne Tiss, Peter Tiss, Janet Lee, Gerry Geibel, Chris Levi, Bob Goldie, John Dockerill, Meredith Reardon, Janet Luther, Robert Jones, Geoff Fox, Bruce Roberts, Ken Stone, Gerry Lee and many others. The event was supported by Salisbury Council and Mawson Lakes Living magazine. Many thanks to you all.

Score Sheet Final

Words by Adrian Heard

It was a day where you just had to hang in there.

The day for the 2018 NSW RC Laser State Titles started out at Dobroyd Aquatic Club feeling fairly benign.  There was a cold westerly wind blowing, so an up and down course in front of the deck was set up with a clearance mark set at the windward mark, together with an indicator mark to give some size to the zone around the mark.  There were a couple of B sails, but a majority of C sails were set for the first race; and then things started going downhill. Significant wind shifts occurred through the day; particularly “effective” in the last seconds of the countdown to some of the starts.

A quick decent with everyone on to D sails; and it just got worse.  The problem was not so much the strength of the wind, but the depth of the lulls between the darkies.  You would fall into a hole and be essentially stationary with the D sail providing very little assistance in keeping the boat moving.  A few C sails re-appeared later in the day more in hope than with logic.

We had the works… gear failures, radios, sailaways, there was one rescue of three boats at once in different points of the compass; and a couple of dismastings.  Yes, it was a lively day.

The conditions got the better of a number of sailors as the day progressed with a growing list of withdrawals occurring.

In spite of the conditions, Paul Derwent sailed perfectly to the conditions to destroy the opposition and take out the 2018 NSW RC Laser State Title – a fine exhibition of sailing under the conditions.  Well done and well deserved Paul.

Graham Brown took second place, but was not comfortable at any time during the day.  Noel McPherson was third, and was only lifted into the position with some kamikaze sailing with a C sail later in the day.  Robin Tickner and Peter Close fought impressively for positions the whole day to finish on the same points, but Robin finished ahead on a count back.  Daniel Bergan had a varied day, but the D sail ended up to be his undoing.  Phillip Page sailed into some good results, but finally had to withdraw.  Brian Chapman had an unfortunate day, being well positioned in a number of races, but not getting to the line to hold the position.  Ivan Schlederer had some good results, and also could not continue the racing.  Geoff Lucas found the going difficult, and finally had to pull out with gear failure; as did Mark Luland, Peter Lee and Steve Crewes.

It was an intense day – I think it will be etched in our brains for some time to come.

I want to thank everyone who helped out on the day, in particular PRO Paul Martin, and our scorer Jill Brown.  Graham Brown and Brian Chapman did a great job with the rescue boat and the other peripheral things that have to be done.. Thanks everyone for a good day.

Words By Noel McPherson RCL#65. Photos by Carola Derwent

It is now less than eight weeks before the 2018 RC Laser National Titles take place at Mawson Lakes. After a successful State Titles in June,  during which we were able to test the new motor and batteries on our electrically powered recovery boat and use our new specially-designed racing buoys, there is now a sense that Mawson Lakes Model Yacht Club is really set up to running such an important event.

First Prize

The prize for first place will be an RC Laser with B rig and boat bag, sailed only at the Championship of Nations in 2017.

Entrants

We now have 27 entrants for the National Titles – 11 from SA, 6 from Qld, 5 from Vic, 3 from NSW and 2 from NZ. We are hoping that with later entrants during the next six weeks or so that we finish up with 35-40 entrants.

Important Dates

For those yet to enter, please note that standard entries close on Friday 14^th September, and following that a $20 late fee will be payable for any entries up to 6pm on Friday 28^th September.

The Program for the 2018 RC Laser National Titles 

Friday 28^th September

Registration and Measuring 9.30am – 12.30pm

Lunch 12.30pm

Practice Sailing 10.30am – 3.30pm

Saturday 29^th September

 Registration and Measuring 9.00am – 10.00am

Briefing 10.00am

Warning signal for first race 10.30am

Lunch 12.30pm; TV will be available for updates on the AFL grand final

No heat will commence after 4.30pm

Sunday 30^th September

Briefing 10.00am

Warning signal for first race 10.30am

Lunch 12.30pm

No heat will commence after 4.30pm

National Titles Dinner – The Bartley Tavern, Bartley Tce, West Lakes 6.00pm

National Titles Raffle to be drawn at the dinner

Monday 1^st October

Briefing 10.00am

Warning signal for first race 10.30am

Lunch 12.30pm

No heat will commence after 3.00pm

Presentations 3.45pm

Presentations will be made by the Mayor of Salisbury, The Hon. Gillian Aldridge

New Class Rules

Please note that the new Australian addendum to the RC Laser class rules will come into force at these Titles. Amongst other things our measurer, Bob Whitehead will be checking overall length of A masts (minimum 1780mm) and all B/C/D masts (minimum 1425mm), and the distance from the bottom of all masts to the bottom of the gooseneck fitting (110mm), so please ensure that all your masts fit these specifications.

The National Titles Raffle

The National Titles Raffle has been a great success both within Mawson Lakes Model Yacht Club and with the RC Laser community nationally. For those of you who still have raffle ticket books, we would appreciate them being returned to Chris Levi at Mawson Lakes MYC by Friday 14^th September. The first prize in the raffle is a CON17 RC Laser with B rig and boat bag, and the raffle will be drawn at the National Titles dinner on the evening of Sunday 30^th September.

The Organising Committee

The National Titles organising committee is John Berry, Chris Levi, Mark Easton, Reg Cunningham, Bob Whitehead, Alex Hayter and Adrian Heard.

It’s time to Enter

The registration form for the National Titles continues to be available on The Mawson Lakes club website, and we encourage all of you who are interested in the event to register sooner rather than later. The club website can be found on www.mawsonlakesmyc.com

The notice of race for the National Titles is also available on the ARYA website www.arya.asn.au

And who will win….

I wrote this section for the Championship of Nations last year, and I always enjoy writing it – there are so many capable sailors around Australia and New Zealand. Scott Fleming and Scott Mitchell, the ‘two hot Scotts’ as they have been labelled, not only came first and second at CON17 but also both have considerable sailing experience at Mawson Lakes – that has to put them as favourites. However, there are some serious challengers around and Graham Watson from New Zealand is definitely one of them. His recent performances against Graham Brown in Sydney (another serious challenger) show that he is a major contender. Peter Burford from Queensland will adapt quickly to the Mawson Lake conditions and will sail well as always. On the local front Jurgen Luther, Lindsay Sawyer and I are probably rated as the most consistent sailors, with Jurgen having the best knowledge of the Lake of any of us, but none of us have any delusions of winning more than a race or two. Brad Hein from Portland, Victoria is a prodigious talent, who will win titles in the future – you will all hear a lot more about him. Daniel Bergan from Queensland, has great potential but probably hasn’t done enough sailing in the past 12 months to be a major threat to the Scotts. Linton Little from New Zealand I don’t know much about, so he may surprise us all, and who knows we may yet get an entry from Kirwan Robb – wouldn’t that set the cat amongst the pigeons!!

Words and photo

Adrian Heard