Photo by Gerry Geibel.
The SA RC Laser titles were run at Mawson Lakes on the weekend of April 29/30 in
light conditions with a fleet of 19 boats from 4 states.
The title favourites of Brad Hein and Peter Burton didn’t disappoint but local sailor Tony White in one of his first forays into the RC Laser world with a borrowed boat, really stirred up the competition.
The first race, which I won featured, winds which were on the upper margin of A rigs and local sailors, including Tony, chose A rigs while most of the visitors selected B rigs. However, with a slight increase in SW wind speed at the beginning of race two, 4-5 sailors downsized to B rigs. But not Tony. He stuck with his A rig and won the next two races. It was quite obvious that Tony’s larger A rig was advantageous in the tightly contested starts and his two wins soon had Brad and Peter running for their A rigs. Brad then proceeded to claim a string of four wins while Peter Elverd had gear problems. In the meantime Garry Polomka was quietly putting together a series of good races and finished day 1 in fifth place.
The starts were difficult all day and with light airs getting clear wind was absolutely
critical. As a result some of the heavy weather specialists like Grant Gillespie and
Peter Lee struggled. John Halloran from Queensland was always up in the top third
of the fleet and had some good results later in the day.
Sunday proved to be a difficult day with very light northerly winds. Only two races
could be conducted before light drizzle set in, killing of the last remnants of breeze.
The first race saw a very spread out field with Brad, Peter and Peter Yates getting a
big lead over the remaining boats.
The final race was very challenging with the lead changing many times with at one stage a group of 6-7 boats catching up to the 3 leaders. I led on several occasions and was fortunate to pick the upwind mark at the leeward gate and then in very light airs I managed to beat Peter Burton by a nose.
Overall the series was sailed in the usual good spirits that we have come to expect
from RC Laser events. Stewart Ross ran an excellent series and his firm hand in
making decisions was appreciated by all. Len Hearing and Lindsay Sawyer were
observers assisting Stewart. Lorraine Berry, Rose Ross and Ross Bessell were our
trustworthy scorers for the event. Bob Whitehead and Lindsay Sawyer conducted
measuring of boats. Brian Marshall, Garry Loughead, John Moore and Dean Bonnett
staffed the recovery boat. Meredith Reardon and Gaynor Kouwenhoven kept us all
fed and watered. John Berry was the organiser in charge of this successful event.
Words by Adrian Heard
