Queensland 10 Rater Championships – March 12

By Mark Perkin – PRYC 10R Fleet Captain

The latest 10 Rater championship event was held under fine conditions at Emerald Lakes, with 11 boats turning out on the day. The event also attracted quite a number of onlookers during the course of the day. It was great to see the Sunshine Coast boys come down and compete in the event.

You could say it was a case of diamonds are forever, with the Graham Bantock designed boats taking a clean sweep of the top 3 places.

The sailing breeze was generally light, with winds at the top mark becoming fickle in the shadow of the trees by the equipment shed. This issue eventually lead to the course being moved around half way thru the day, to a better location more in the middle of the lake, where there was nothing onshore to interrupt the breeze.

The wind was quite light to start with, so all boats were initially rigged up with their A rigs, but as the day progressed, the breeze strengthened, and most boats changed down to B rigs around lunchtime.

It lightened again in the afternoon, so some skippers changed back up again to their A rigs.

The top 3 places were filled with Diamonds, as mentioned before, who dominated the day’s racing with their big rigs and sheer boat speed.

Ian Ashe was PRO on the day, and did a great job as usual.

It was pleasing to see that there were very few protests, and also few incidents on the water, so for the most part, the racing was clean and fair.  

David Turton, sailing #76, won the day, with 8 wins, for a total score of 27 points.

Greg Torpy came in second, sailing #44, with 6 wins and 34 points.

Tim Brown was third place winner, sailing #07, with 2 wins and 45 points.

Many thanks to all who competed, and especially to Laurie Hinchcliffe for all his work behind the scenes, and also to all the people who came along to act as race officials and support crew on the day.

Happy sailing

Mark

Full Results

Graham had a dust-up with Warren at the bottom mark and lost his A rig mast, so had to change down to his B rig.

Ross won the day, with 9 wins for an overall score of 17 points.

Roger came second, with 7 wins and 21 points.

Mark was 3rd, with 5 seconds and 36 points.

Graham is going very well for a newbie, and came in 4th with 45 points.

Warren rounded out the positions with 65 points.

IOM TOP’s Scratch Championship Winners (Pictured from left: 3rd Doug Wells ,2nd Roger Taylor, PRYC Sailing Secretary and Medallion Presenter Laurie Hinchcliff and 1st Tony Fannin)	10R Scratch Championship Winners (Pictured from left: 1st Ross Capper, 2nd Roger Margot {3rd John Musgrave absent] with PRYC Sailing Secretary and Medallion Presenter Laurie Hinchcliff)

PRYC Perpetual Trophy Recipients 2016

A blustery day sailed mostly on B rigs though Mark managed to survive on A and Warren wisely went to C. The breeze was gusty from the E to NE at around 8 to 14 knots. The shifty conditions created a good number of passing lanes for the back markers and also allowed those off lower handicaps to stay ahead if they played their cards right. Only 10 races were completed due to an approaching storm and a number of boats needing attention due to the constant squalls.

This was the last competition day for the year and ended with 7 boats and a couple of new boats and skippers to continue into 2017. A good year has been had by all.

Dragon Force Challenge Round 1 2016 Report

Since the arrival in 2013 of this affordable, one design restricted class yacht, which easily fits in your car, a number of new and experienced skippers have been attracted to Dragon Force yachts.

In sponsoring the inaugural Challenge, QRYA and Paradise Radio Yacht Club are to be congratulated on proactively fostering this growing interest in RC yacht racing.

Round One of the 2016 inaugural Dragon Force Challenge was raced at Emerald Lakes (Gold Coast) on Sunday April 10^th.

Twenty-six skippers from five different clubs raced Dragon Force yachts together for the first time in Queensland. All opted for A sail rigs with only six yachts fitted with original Joysway sails. Yachts were divided into two fleets with skippers sailing a total of eleven races.

PRO Bill Clancy’s dedicated PRYC team together with David & Val Black (scoring data management) ensured a professionally conducted event, tailored to educate newcomer skippers as the day progressed. According to Bill, the regatta was “competitive and held in good spirit.”

The only reported distraction to skippers being the wafting, hunger inducing, favourable aroma of our bbq lunch being prepared.  

The balmy day and blue sky backdrop, though picture perfect, provided a variable north easterly breeze up to about 15 km/hr which at times, particularly in the morning, tested and frustrated most skippers. A particular location on the course provided most of the “spectator entertainment”.

Two skippers earned David Black’s empathy and “Its Moments like these you need Minties” lollies rewards for recording the most changes between A and B fleet.

Our medallion winning top three place getters, from left to right in the image: In 2^nd Place Bruce McLaren (Springfield Lakes Maritime Modellers), in 1^st Place Laurie Hinchcliffe (Koonawarra Bay SC NSW) - and 3^rd Place Roger Taylor ( Paradise Radio Yacht Club).

As for the rest of us: A magic day! Round Two - can’t wait!!

View two race videos courtesy of a PRYC club member.