Lake Jindabyne Sailing Season Commences, Despite the Rain.
Story by Tim Symons, photos by John Byrne Richard Churm and Nulu
The 2020/21 Sailing Season commenced at lake Jindabyne Sailing Club on Saturday 31st October with the running of the first heat of the 2020/21 Point-score series. Despite the rainy weather, five monohulls and 5 catamarans rigged up to compete in the race. John Byrne manned the start boat while Richard and Mark manned the rescue boat.
John set a Port rounding course and a start line at the Bay Mark. He sent the two fleets off together, though some of the Laser sailors expected starts for each division and so were a bit slow crossing the line, letting the cats go first. Alan “Barney” Davis led the cats through the start while Nic Kennedy on his Finn was the first monohull across the line. These two stayed in front as they led their separate divisions around the course.
The wind grew from around 6 knots at the start to 10 to 12 knots during the race. Luckily the sailors only had one small rain shower to contend with during the race. Andrew Kennedy followed Alan around the first triangle lap and onto the first sausage lap while being chased down by Sam Bylett and Hamish Greenwood sailing their Viper F16 for the first time. The quick F16 cat eventually passed Andrew and set off after Alan, but failed to catch him. Marty Wittington sailed his Hobie 17 for the first time as he had just purchased it. Thor and Freya Slater started about seven minutes late on their Maricat 4.3 and tried to catch the other cats.
After a four lap race, Alan led the cats to the finish line followed by Sam & Hamish, Andrew, Marty and Thor & Freya who finished together. Alan took the win on yardstick corrected times followed by Andrew, Thor & Freya, Sam & Hamish and Marty.
In the monohulls race, the four Laser sailors followed Nic around the four lap course. He finished first followed by Damien Goninan sailing his recently purchased Laser full rig for the first time. Next came Kerry McGaw and new members, Stephen French and Ian Fergusson. The yardstick corrected times win went to Nic followed by Kerry, Damien, Steve and Ian. The sailors all enjoyed the race, though hoped for fine weather for the next race on Wednesday 4th November.
Meanwhile the Sailing Club’s New Sheds are going ahead with the two concrete slabs ready to be laid in preparation for the construction of the sheds.
Results and running point-scores for all races will be published on the scrolling “Local Sport” results soon.
