Author: Beth

Registration Open

The weekend of April 10^th and 11^th is the RC Laser South Australian State Titles 2021 and here at the Club we are gearing up for a big event. Let’s hope that Covid-19 restrictions don’t prevent a large contingent of interstate visitors from participating in this event.

We have been informed that two of our past State Champions Scott Fleming (Vic) and Peter Burton (NSW) will be participating given that borders are open. Those two visitors may strongly tempt our other local State Champion Scott Mitchell to also take part. Throw Brad Hein from Portland into that mix and it should be a very keenly contested series.

We expect a strong group of local sailors (Mawson Lakes and Wallaroo) to be combined with a good Portland group, a Geelong group and a reasonable sized Patterson Lakes group, which should give us an excellent fleet for this event. We hope to see a contingent of Queenslanders and NSW sailors as well.

As an incentive for registering for these titles we are offering two barbeques to participants. On the Saturday evening we will draw the names of two registrants from a hat and they will be the lucky owners of one of these barbeques.

Registration is now available online at www.mawsonlakesmyc.com so please get those registrations rolling in.

Sailing at Port River is quite different to Mawson Lakes with more reliable sea breezes and slightly bigger waves. It has become a regular Laser sailing venue over the past few years, and we feel sure that you will enjoy the sailing experience.

Below is a map showing the access to Port River Sailing Club. The Club is on the Lefevre Peninsula to the north of Port Adelaide. The main road in the map is Victoria Road and you turn off to the Dolphin Sanctuary via Willochra St. The location of the club is shown by the black circle.

Registration is now available online at www.mawsonlakesmyc.com

Adrian Heard

Email heard.14.au@gmail.com  Phone 0427 833 324

After a long period of lockdown due to Covid-19, the South Australian Laser fleet is back in the water. Even though Mawson Lakes Model Yacht Club is still closed, we run unstructured sailing at Mawson Lakes each Wednesday, and we have regularly been getting 6-7 Laser sailors in attendance. We are also running unstructured sailing at West Lakes one Saturday a month so that those Laser sailors who work during the week also have a chance to sail.

Last Sunday we had a sail at Hart’s Mill, one of South Australia’s premier RC sailing venues. As you can see from the photo, we had a light south-easterly breeze but great sailing was had by all participants.

During the Covid-19 period some significant developments have taken place in the South Australian RC Laser fleet. Don Turnbull has been regularly travelling up to Wallaroo, about an hour and a half north of Adelaide, and has now recruited several members of the local club into the SA fleet. Also, Mark Keeble from Mildura has bought several RC Lasers and we look forward to racing at Lake Cullulleraine with him in future. We have another new member of the MLMYC fleet, Bruce Backman who has joined us recently with RCL #169.

We have released a revised 2020 program with a date of October 31 and November 1 for our State Titles. This is about a month after the planned date for the Nationals and we hope we will get lots of interstate visitors for this event.

We wish all other Australian fleets well and hope to see some of you at Emerald Lakes in early October.

Adrian Heard

The host club has changed for the 2020 RC Laser Australian Championships. The event will now be hosted by Paradise Radio Yacht Club over the weekend 3rd – 5th October 2020 – a long weekend in QLD, NSW and SA.

The venue is Emerald Lakes, where the very successful Championship of Nations was held in 2017.

The experienced organisers at Paradise Radio Yacht Club will undoubtedly put on a great event. It’s one to mark in the diary now.

Fantastic conditions welcomed 8 competitors at Mangawhai for the RC Laser New Zealand 2019 North Island Championship on Sunday 3rd November. A 12 -18 knot SW breeze kept the fleet on “C” rigs all day, where we managed to squeeze off 19 races.

5 different skippers all got a bullet showing the competition was hard fought. Paul Goddard seemed to have a slight edge upwind and sailed well to take out the day and retain the trophy for the second year running. The mid fleet positions were very closely competed for with many photo finishes.

Thanks to our race recorder, Barbara, who was under the pump during those close finishes.

Many laughs and good fun all round made for a most enjoyable day of competition. Most improved skipper award would have to go to Greg McBain who, once he got his confidence in the start box, showed he could grab some good results. The pics tell the story of how lucky we are with a great venue for RC Yachting.

Another great day of RC Laser sailing with lots of laughs and wonderful company.

Dobroyd Aquatic Club hosted the NSW State Championship 2019 for RC Lasers on the first Sunday in November.

Thanks to NSWRYA for providing the medals for first, second and third places and to Steven Crewes, DAC Member, for donating prizes.

Competition came from far afield. Noel Christison set the pace with his four-week journey from Queensland which also took in the SA State Titles. Peter Burton and Alan Griffith came from Forster Tuncurry and David Preece from George’s Basin on NSW south coast.

The success of the event was made possible by a small but dedicated team lead by Noel McPherson, the Class Captain. Thank you again to Paul Martin for his role as Race Officer. The varying wind was an early challenge but Paul still managed to set Courses which provided a fair test. At the other end of the radio was Stephen Deane who spent most of the day in the rescue boat, moving marks at Paul’s request. Stephen suffered from the odd rain shower but also made our sailing a success.

I assumed the role as scorer and with Mark Luland, we were the observers with pads and pens in hand. Not much was heard from Mark and I, as quite often after an infringement, the appropriate boat was already completing the penalty turn.

The forecast was more gentle than advised with only a light shower later in the day and no thunderstorms in our area. The wind eventually settled to a Nor’Easter with a light to moderate chop.

It was interesting to see “B”, “C” and “D” sails in the same race on one or two occasions. The “D”s would take off in a strong gust only to be overtaken by the “B”s in the lulls. Some weed from recent strong winds was shared equally so probably didn’t affect the results much, if at all.

The racing was dominated by Peter Burton and Graham Brown. An early contender was Paul Derwent who suffered more than most from weed. Alan Griffith always seemed the be up the front end and Noel McPherson again showed that consistency is what counts.

Quite a few boats had moments of glory. Apart from the top three, race winners were Alan Griffith, Paul Derwent, David Preece, Peter Close and Rob Lowndes.

Peter Burton and Graham Brown were the early contenders for NSW Champion. Peter and Graham were neck and neck with the greatest margin being only six points. This was the final difference between them.

NSW State Champion 2019 is Peter Burton scoring 23 points.

                    Second Place is Graham Brown scoring 29 points.

                    Third Place is Noel McPherson scoring 61 points.

Congratulations to all Sailors on a successful day.

Brian Chapman.