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
