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More news from the very successful 2018 RC Laser National Titles held over last weekend at Mawson Lakes. 

For the first time, the National Titles Organising Committee conducted a raffle as part of the event. Participants were provided with tickets as part of the entry price and additional tickets were sold. The raffle was drawn at the 2018 RC Laser National Titles dinner, held on Saturday night. 

Overall, there were 1585 tickets sold of which 350 went to entrants of the National Titles.  210 tickets were sold interstate.

Members of Mawson Lakes Model Yacht Club did an amazing job in selling over 1,000 tickets. And many thanks go to those from interstate who helped sell raffle tickets. You helped substantially with the running of the National Titles.

Ticket sellers included Bob Caldow of Club Kawana Radio Yachting, Sunshine Coast; Geoff Smith of Paradise Radio Yacht Club, Gold Coast; Noel McPherson of Dobroyd Aquatic Club, Sydney; Scott Fleming of Patterson Lakes Radio Model Yacht Club, Melbourne; and Gary Hein of Portland Yacht Club, Victoria.

The raffle was a great success, and Alex Hayter is the very happy owner of a new RC Laser.

Results of the raffle draw were as follows: 

MLMYC 2018 RC Laser National Titles Raffle 

1^st prize an RC Laser

Ticket 1625 , Alex Hayter, Member MLMYC

 2^nd prize – $100

Ticket 1709 , Peter Christopher, SA

3^rd prize $50 or club m/ship

Ticket 321, Kate Quigley, Member MLMYC

Prizes drawn by Councillor Stephen White at the 2018 RC Laser National Titles Dinner.

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