RMYS was lucky enough to be invited to host the S80 Victorian Championship for 2020. This annual event is hosted a different club each year and is always well represented by clubs around the bay, this year there were 16 entries With RMYS, HBYC and RYCV making up most of the field.
The regatta is a 3 day event is a large undertaking, I want to send out a special thank you to Andrew Gluth as RO and all the volunteers that took to the water, without them we can not do these events. Also we need to acknowledge the Steve Thompson ( Espresso) has just been named as the new president of the S80 Victoria, well dome and please say congrats when you see him next.
As the new leader he has kindly put this report together for us
“Ok so I might be a teeny bit biased, but the S80 State Titles held at RMYS over this last weekend demonstrated again why this is such a fabulous class of boat. High class close one design racing with great comradery.
The weather let us down on Friday with a gale warning which proved pretty accurate with 45 knot gusts arriving with the cool change mid afternoon accompanied by some heavy rain and a large amount of relief from us all that we were not out there. A short race and the long race were scheduled for Friday so the plan was to add a short race to Saturday and to Sunday to complete the 7 race event with one dropped result per boat.
16 eager competitors took to the water on Saturday morning for a four-race marathon in a 15 to 20 knot southerly breeze.
Espresso was so eager that prior to the race a bit of spinnaker practice was attempted. A combination of wind, waves and skipper ineptitude resulted in a pretty spectacular knock down during a gybe resulting in four rather damp crew members (skipper remained dry as a bone) but our trusty vessel righted itself with no damage other than the aforementioned dampness. Luckily for us the photographer had not made it out onto the water to capture this spectacular event so I can still claim it was merely an exercise to inspect the hull of the boat more thoroughly.
While we call this the “State Titles” some would argue that it was actually the “Nationals” as we had Jeff Crookes the President of the S80 Association of Western Australia racing Imaginer a borrowed boat from Sandy.
Our trusty and greatly appreciated RMYS volunteer Race Officer team set a windward leeward course with a beat of around 0.7nm for two laps with a downwind finish.
The starts in S80 one design class racing are hotly contested especially with such short races that rely heavily on getting a good start and clear wind. The fleet is extremely competitive with some top-class sailors that are to be avoided by us bottom dwellers as they skilfully manoeuvre to ensure you don’t get in their way.
Luke Renehr from “Intrusion” showed us why he has won 12 state titles in the last 20 years by leaping straight into the lead showing the entire fleet a clean pair of heals for the first four races. Intrusion has an innate ability to point high and go fast at the same time combined with a slick crew and great upwind strategies mean they are unbeatable in that wind strength (and most other wind strengths for that matter).
Unfortunately, on the first beat of the first race a port and starboard collision occurred between “Merak” (starboard) who was T-boned by “Skipjack” (port) resulting in some significant damage to the rear quarter of Merak’s hull necessitating retirement from the regatta. Kellie Knowles from RMYS generously loaned her S80 Take One to the Merak crew for the Sunday racing
Our club captain was on the RO team and pointed out that as each boat rounded the leeward mark the time between dropping the kite and rounding the mark increased exponentially as the fleet went past. The top three boats were almost at the mark before the kite was very swiftly doused whereas the bottom three boats pulling the kite down with 50m to spare.
Despite these differences the last boat was always on the last leg of the course when the first boat finished meaning that the fleet is reasonably compressed (about 10 minutes). We on Espresso had a number of photo finishes which were great fun with Mood Indigo beating us by about a metre on the last race.
After a sausage sizzle at the club most of us went home and flopped into bed early nursing bruises, pains and strains exhausted from 5 hours out on the water in boisterous conditions.
Sunday brought the obligatory lumpy water and 10 knot breezes to start the day’s three races. Keeping the boats driving through choppy water was a challenge and once again the top teams excelled at this. However, “Intrusion” was offered some tighter competition from “Moonraker”, “Skipjack”, “Runamuk” and “Outlaw” but prevailed by the end of each race such that by the end of race 6 Intrusion had the event sown up with six wins.
Being largely Swan River sailors the Perth team on “Imaginer” found the waves over the weekend particularly challenging but did pretty well over all on an unfamiliar boat finishing in 7th place.
The top three were Intrusion (Sandy), Moonraker (Hobbo’s) and Skipjack (Hobbo’s).
RMYS finishers were Mood Indigo 9th, Espresso 10th and Rock n Roll 14th
There is also a trophy for a performance handicap based on the times from the previous state titles. The top three were Up and Go (Royals) Intrusion (Sandy) and Espresso (RMYS).
Presentation at the bar after the regatta was a fun filled affair with the usual recounting the highs and lows of such an exciting and close fought event. Colin Burgess our esteemed race coordinator working closely with David Judge the S80 Association President put on an excellent regatta enjoyed by all.
One final trophy went to the boat with the oldest crew and this was taken our by “Mood Indigo” with a combined age of 5 people being over 300 years.”
