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David Wood and I attended a classes meeting last tuesday- and were informed that the club was going to make an effort to have enough food on saturday to cater for those wanting lunch however at this stage provision for sunday lunch has not been made
on the subject of security it is unlikely that the entire fleet will able to be accomodated within the security compound at the club, but the club now has an effective lighting system illuminating the front of the clubhouse more info will be available on saturdayALL SAILORS PLEASE ENSURE YOUR TROLLEY HAS IN BIG NUMBERS YOUR SAIL NUMBER AS IT HELPS OTHER SAILORS TO GET YOU OUT OF THE WATER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AFTER EACH RACE- peter reid sabre rep Black Rock
Just to add a bit not included above
all courses are windward and return -seemed strange sailing with no reaching except in race one with a huge wind change and lots of reaching
4 light air and 4 heavy air races- only medium air was the invitation
there were no trophys for classes which seemed to disadvantage sabres especially since we had 10 starters but the organisers were insistant that that the regatta be based on yardstick
the strong winds that blew on tuesday simply blew the other classes away and set the basis for sabres doing well in the regatta- of the three agegroups each with three medals: gold silver and bronze ie 9 medals sabre sailors took home 4- the only class that really seemed to dominate us in all conditions were the tasars
the organization was simply the best i have ever seen anywhere in terms of how well the sailors were looked after- royal geelong made sure on our arrival back to the shore after every race that our trolleys were in the water and that we were given a hand retreiving the boat up the ramp and then were presented with either a vb or soft drink to wash down the salt –
yep a chal;lenging yet rewarding experience was had by all sailing for a week at geelong
yep prior to natalie farrell it was built for a sailor from Carrum Victoria (just cant remember his name) who was national president of the sabre sailing association for many years (wish i could remember his name) and he was instrumental on setting up the sabre association in Tasmania and organized the first National titles Lindisfarne in 1987 (my first interstate regatta) The yacht is a windward mark sabre from south australia as at that time South Australia was the only builder of glass and composite sabres-while he was not an ace sailor he was a great guy who put his heart and soul into making the class the great entity it is today- hey i better look up previous rattles so i can recall his name
hey sorry bout you guys not gettin the nats -hey but no worries looks like your first on the list to get the next states ( least hope my secret unidentified source got it right) anyway will be a chance to move the states back where they belong -the labour day long weekend- even if racing is only done on sat and sun we can stay overnight have a nice sleep in before heading back to melbourne
well all i can say steve is im glad i did the masters games in october- we had wind in every race,of course a much smaller fleet – it just seems that brighton just cannot serve up the type of sailing that we heavier sabre sailors crave for- for some reason largs serves up exciting adrenalin pumping regattas whereas at brighton it is always the same sloppy windless choppy stuff for the twenty or so years i have been in sabres- i rekon it has got something to do with global warming because when i started in sabres i knew heaps of laser sailors who dreaded a regatta at holdfast bay just up the road because it was always so windy- i was sure that just because i was not there it would be a great regatta but after reading the reviews and looking at the windless photos for once i got it right
apologies- complete results of the Masters Games are on the adelaide sailing club website- but there are no age group results as to who won each age group division
Hi Chriso- the masters games was a really enjoyable regatta- it seems the locals had really been practicing hard before the regatta- and it took me a few races before i started to sail well
As to what advantage their new boats had is hard to say but to generalize i think the guys who finished ahead of me really did sail well and for that i would congratulate them
what really did surprise me is how well i did sail in the light and fluky day which occurred for races 3 and 4 where i placed as well as i had in the windy races -what really helped me was staying on the waves while running-the courses were trapezoid with lots of running and very little reaching- unfortunately proper results are still not available so i can only pass on memories from presentation night where i consumed a variety of barossa and mc claren vale products- but John Gratton , David Wood and Dean Francis got the gold silver and bronze for the regatta and i was happy with a silver for my age group- David Wood won gold in his age group with John Dick getting bronze ( John had to return home early for family reasons which also meant that Doug Bennet also withdrew.
I found the South Australians to be great hosts and as the Adelaide Sailing Club does not have Sabres there was no real home ground advantage- Neverthe less they were very competitive so i can assure all victorians planning a trip to Brighton Seacliff for the Nationals some really competitive sailing at every level of sailing ability- As for me i have had my trip to adelaide which i thouroughly enjoyedDavid Wood and i (Peter Reid) as sabre class reps at the Rock have been asked to submit sabre sailors names for duty- at this point in time no dates for duty have been set but of the five groups we have asked that only 2 be assigned to pre Christmas sailing and we have done our best to exclude from duty from the first 2 days those we know attending the national titles in South aUSTRALIA ( EXCEPT for our illustrious national measurer who has asked to be posted on duty to gain race managment experience) – please also note that although only my name appears as class rep for sabres for David and i it is very much a team effort- At the time of submitting the list it was not practicable to contact all those listed to enquire their availability so it is up to sabre sailors who are unavailable to swap with other sailors- this list may also be incomplete as we may have some new members of our fleet- personally speaking from rescue boat duty for some reason i always seem to sail well the first week or two after doing duty- i guess you get to avoid the errors you have enjoyed watching all the racing sabres making ( ha ha) but i’m not sure about that
OOD Starter Rescue Crews
DAY 1 J Lamble P.Johnson V.Dacy D.Newington T Clark A.Pendrich
DAY 2 J Dick B.EastgateP.JohnsonP.Fraser M.Weston M.Webb
DAY 3 D Bennet F.McCulloch A.Parkinson C.Dance R.Rooney M.Early
DAY 4 S. Early D.Wood P.Reid G. Abbot S. Douglas P.Young
DAY 5 R MacCauleyJ Dixon M.Neeson G Borgero A Morrisoni would not say gate starts were unfair -in fact people who are a bit timid and are used to them prefer them to a standard line start- i have vague memories of them in my early days of sailing and i just think they are a “PUT OFF” i mean if you are not used to them you will be uncumfortable on the start line- you have to be good at judging the line of the gate yacht if you obstruct him or are above him you are diqualified and if you are well below you have just blown your start- This can be awkward in patchy wind on light days-big rolling seas on windy days and disastrous where there is patchy wind and a strong current flowing- personally i dont like them- sure now victorian clubs will want to introduce them into sailing so that victorian sailors going to the nats in S A will be used to them personally i could not be botherd –
The unfortunate (or fortunate) fact is that Adelaide has heaps of Sabre action in 2007 as a group of 4 Black Rock sailors plan to visit Adelaide for the Australasian Masters Games in October so to a degree Black Rock’s fleet has been split between the two events – true it would be possible to attend both but once you get old enough to qualify for Masters there is just not the need or desire to do everything in life that possible (at least speaking for myself) -for the record the other 3 are John Dick, Doug Bennet and David Wood-my reason for going was that Adelaide is turned over to sportsmen from over 30 sports complete with an opening and closing ceremony-mixng it with people of similar age and interests- in terms of trophy winning, the competition would be tough against the Adelaide locals no matter which (Masters Games or Sabre Nationals) event one went in as they (the locals)would probably go in both- (ok so i figured there was more likely to be wind in october Ha Ha)
while i have no complaints- it just was not as much fun or as friendly as the first one but can not put my finger on it-perhaps it was a regatta i just never got in the groove not sure really
yep i bought a class polo shirt via andrew graham at the start of the season they are quite popular amongst sabre sailors at the rock – they are white with a red sabre on the chest and red piping on the collar but most sailors prefer to wear a sabre nationals shirt of some far away place in their sailing memories as for winter shirts -the summers have been so warm there is just no market for them -people do other things during winter
-The famous Cameron Hooper- protest at the Kingston Nationals (Tasmania) where 2nd place was disqualifed for a mastsleeve put a very clear precedent on sleeves – they are not allowed full stop
The unfotunate fact of that Nationals was that it was extremely light and the sleve would have hurt more than it helped -Cameron was an excellent sailor who earned 2nd by sailing brilliantly-
That Nationals was the most political Nationals ever with 3 Sabre Association Officebeares being flown for free from Melbourne to Hobart to sort out the mess- There was a bigger controversy as the eventual winner should have been disqualified for substituting and engraving another boats number into the sabre he was sailing ( a real sabre style fine cotton affair)- so there were two sabres with the same number – the phantom one though not measured was belived to be faster- after measuring the boat did comply with measurement rules and the winner was not diqualified-but it was no doubt a fraud and i always believed that the attempted deception should have resulted in disqualificaion- when it was quite clear that he did the false engraving into the hull floormy sabre endorphin (1555) was built in 1997 by Phil Johnson it was the first sabre he built commercially (now at black rock races his boats dominate the fleet- up until then he just built them sailed them awhile and sold them- but he started offering to sell kits for handy sailors -when i approached him he only wanted to sell kits and it took a fair bit of convincing for him to build a finished boat- well once it arrived i sailed like a rocket and since know one thought i knew what i was doing they thought that phil must have built a pretty quick boat-the rest of the story is history- so i think you could get a kit from phil and i reckon the lead time would be worth it- on a light note when i got my first sabre i really did not know what i was doing and gave it the name WOMBAT everyone thought it was a cute name -if only they knew the real reason Waste Of Money ,Brains And Time -there you go ha ha
