We are pleased to confirm that the Victorian State Titles scheduled for the weekend of 26th & 27th June are going ahead as planned.
The venue is the Royal Geelong Yacht club and interstate visitors are most welcome.
Here is the link to the Notice of Race
Scott Fleming is the organiser and you’ll find his contact details in the NOR.
Advance notice for events coming up are as follows:
Victorian State Titles- 26-27 June at Royal Geelong Yacht Club, VIC.
NSW State Titles – 22 August at Dobroyd Aquatic Club, Rodd Point, NSW
National Championships and Queensland State Championships – 22nd – 24th October, Emerald Lakes, Carrara, QLD
All sailors are welcome to participate in these friendly events.
Further details will appear on the ARYA website https://radiosailing.org.au/index.php?arcade=events
Here is the link to the NOR for the Nationals
Here is the link to the NOR for the Victorian State Titles
On April 15/16 just a few days after the South Australian RC Laser State Titles a small group of RC Laser sailors ventured two hours north of Adelaide to take part in the South Australian Master’s Games on the Copper Coast.
The Copper Coast is the name for the combined towns of Wallaroo, Kadina and Moonta on northern Yorke Peninsula. The radio controlled sailing component of the Games took place at the Wallaroo Marina and included five RC Laser sailors and six IOM sailors. Wallaroo is an emerging RC Laser fleet with Peter Elverd and Neville Hank both relatively new to RC Laser sailing.
The Wallaroo Marina proved to be a tricky place to sail. While it looks benign in the picture below, this view to the north fails to show the 8 storey Cooper’s Alehouse building which is directly south-west of the control area and which causes some fairly extreme changes in wind direction and strength on the course area.
On the first day the south-westerly wind was 12-15 knots and while the port side of the course was generally favoured on the first half of the windward leg there were occasional big lifts on the starboard side on the second half. This made picking the best course very interesting indeed, and very trying and mentally demanding for all the RC Laser sailors. B rigs were the order of the day.
I adapted best to the conditions probably because of doing my RC apprenticeship at Mawson Lakes, which helped me pick the extreme wind shifts. Gary Hein and Bob Whitehead battled with getting into irons in some of the bigger shifts. Neville Hank struggled with the shifts and with rounding the windward mark in the reflected sunlight on the water near the mark. Peter Elverd, would I think, describe his day as frustrating, as I know he is a better sailor than his performance showed.
Day two looked a lot more promising with a 5-8 knot westerly wind at our 11am starting time. Neville Hank flourished in these conditions with some excellent starts and a first and two seconds in the first 4 races. Unfortunately for Neville, these conditions didn’t last and by lunch time we were back to a south-westerly wind very similar to day one. This also led to similar results to the previous day except that Peter Elverd and Gary Hein sailed more consistently and Bob Whitehead probably became more frustrated with buoy roundings and collisions. To be quite frank we were all exhausted when the last race was finished.
That night at the clubhouse dinner Gary’s wife Dianne, who had been watching us from the opposite side of the marina on day one, gave a fairly frank account of our standard of windward buoy roundings. None of us faired particularly well, but she is clearly an important reason for the sailing successes of the Hein family. I won the event on 20 points, Gary Hein despite buoy roundings did well to finish in second place (45 points) and Peter Elverd finished third (50 points).
Many thanks to Peter and Julie Elverd and Neville Hank and Margaret Pope for all their work and excellent hospitality. The Wallaroo sailing club provided fabulous facilities and highly competent volunteers to officiate in this well-run event.
Words by Adrian Heard
Fourteen DAC RC Laser Sailors recently mentored ten teenagers from Hornsby Ku-ring-ai Sailing Club, in how to sail the RC Laser. The teenagers sail on the Hawkesbury River near Brooklyn and their club, although small, has produced a number of State Champions, National Champions and even an Olympic medallist.
This was the planning of Graham Brown who has been involved with the Hornsby Ku-ring-ai Sailing Club for over 40 years and has been instrumental in their instruction in dinghy sailing and racing.
Each DAC sailor was assigned a “novice” for the day. The format was for alternate races being sailed by a novice under the watchful eyes and advice of the more experienced RC sailors. The in-between races were then sailed by our regular sailors for our normal point score.
The conditions were a light Westerly on smooth waters, and there was some leftover weed from the weather the previous week.
The eventual Teams Winner was Peter Close and Alex Stewart ( Current HKSC Commodore) who showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the fleet. Alex adapted very quickly to the subtleties of RC sailing and, combined with the skill of Peter Close, were clear winners. It was decided that, due to the experience and age of Team Close / Stewart, an age allowance was imposed and the prizes went to the runner up team of Noel McPherson and Cadel Stewart (Alex’s son).
The ‘novices’ surprised us all at how quickly they grasped the necessary idiosyncrasies of remote controlling a sailing craft – we were very impressed – well done all.
A very successful day with smiles all round, including a few Mums watching. Well done and thank you Members for your support!
Thanks to Graham Brown for the Club background input and Noel McPherson and Eliza Kemp’s Mum for the photos.
Scoring for the “oldies” was based on 5 Races.
Graham Brown took the honours for the day to win 1st place on 6 points.
Peter Close finished in 2nd place on 10 points.
Robin Tickner finished in 3rd place with 14 points.
The Club Championship now has Peter Close in front from Graham Brown and Noel McPherson.
From Brian Chapman #246.
With 32 entries this year’s titles represented the largest ever fleet for a South Australia RC Laser Titles. The fleet included 14 sailors from Victoria, 2 from New South Wales and 16 from South Australia. The titles were sailed over the weekend of April 10/11 at Port River Sailing Club using the SHRS scoring system.
Saturday was windy with regular southerly rain squalls blowing down the river. The day started at 20 knots with gusts to 25 knots, and we finished up sailing only four races due to the wind eventually reaching 25 knots plus by 4pm.
In Saturday’s qualifying races Scott Fleming and Scott Mitchell showed their prowess at sailing in strong winds in D rigs. Grant Gillespie and Peter Burton also sailed well, and Phil Clerke did a great job in winning the last heat in very strong conditions. Brad Hein had an unfortunate collision and had to pull out of the third race for the day.
On Sunday the weather was slightly better, but we still donned our D rigs for the early races. We sailed two more qualifying races before sailing four final races in gold and silver fleets. The starts were tricky due to the port end of the start line being favoured for most of the day’s races. Also, an incoming tide was a factor for the final races.
Scott Fleming, who was trailing Scott Mitchell overnight, made a strong comeback on Sunday with three wins and two seconds in the five races. The front section of the gold fleet was fairly tightly packed going around the windward mark and a couple of big knocks near the mark made the action exciting. The host club Mawson Lakes main contender was Phil Clerke, who got some great starts and got a first and third place. Mario Gulic was the real comeback kid on Sunday with excellent results in four races. He narrowly missed line honours to Scott Fleming in the last race.
Overall, in the gold fleet Scott Fleming ran out an easy winner to Scott Mitchell second, and Phil Clerke third. Peter Burton, the defending champion finished fourth. In the silver fleet, Peter Yates successfully defended his 2019 title, followed by Rob O’Brien and Alex Hayter. We didn’t get as many races in as we expected due to the strong winds, but virtually all sailors reported having a great time regardless. As someone said with 32 entries it felt like a ‘mini-nationals’.
Thanks go to Stewart Ross our RO, Mario Gulic, Lorraine Berry and Rose Ross for scoring, Alex and Sue Hayter for having us at Port River Sailing Club, Garry Loughead for running the rescue boat, Meredith Reardon and Janet Luther for organising and serving the food, Bob Whitehead and Lindsay Sawyer for conducting the measuring, Gaynor Kouwenhoven, Mike Turner and Chris Levi for handling entries and administration and to Dean Bonnett and Gerry Geibel for photography and general assistance. You all made a great support team for a series that was sailed and run in a very friendly way!
