Vantage Real Estate Upper Harbour Championship
Lane Cove Sailing Club 14th October 2006
A mixed bag of rig selections was evident on the start line of the Upper Harbour Championship. The forecast NorEaster was stronger than many first thought at the start of the race, and had everyone wondering how strong it was going to be by the end of the day. All those with Big Rigs looked a little worried.
Gemmell Sail and Sirromet go the jump on the fleet early, with Gemmell Sails
leading the fleet out of the river. Garde found themselves in 2nd place when
they decided it was too hot to be sailing and went for a swim.
Gemmell sails extended their lead down the kite run but they too needed a
cool off towards the next mark.
Yabba Dabba was left standing with a handy lead, a bunched up fleet vying for second place closely followed. Tragedy also struck Yabba Dabba, when they broke their tiller. They were later seen electrical taping a drink bottle to it to act as a splint. Unfortunately the repairs did not hold up for the entirety of the race.
There were other unfortunate casualties, Acer was seen on shore early with the boat upside down to drain water out. The boat has just had a new floor installed, the site of water pouring out of the upturned craft prompted the builders to wonder what had gone wrong during construction. Further investigate exposed the crews inability to tighten the buoyancy caps.
The NorEaster that everyone thought would build - did not, and had all those with big rigs now smiling. It also allowed Garde and Gemmell Sails to get back to the front and hold on to finish in that order.
A charging Geotherm finished 3rd with 12ft Skiff rookies Ed Blackman and Paul Carpenter on Dipolar Software having a fantastic race to finish 4th.
Handicap honours went to Holt Marine Fittings, with Geotherm 2nd and Datacall 3rd.
The next interclub and heat 2 of the East Coast Championship will see the fleet line up at Abbotsford Sailing Club on the 5th November for the Parramatta River Championship.
Skiff-Ed