NSW O'pen Cup 2013 - Superb racing on the Great Lakes
by Quentin Haessig on 31 Jan 2013
NSW O’pen Cup 2012-2013 Quentin Haessig
The NSW O'pen Cup 2013 staged the second round of racing at Great Lakes Sailing Club Forster this past weekend. 39 boats competed in the two-day regatta with Kristen Wadley aboard Gas Bag easily cruising to the crown.
Fridays forecast for Saturday 'looked favourable with Sunday not looking so good. Based on that we got straight into the point score racing Saturday morning and managed five races in a varying breeze from 10-20 knots out of the NE. As is the norm for O'pen BIC regattas, we split the fleets in to Gold and Silver, the Gold being the more experienced sailors and the silver being the new comers to racing. We had 24 starts for the Gold fleet and 15 for the Silver.
In the Gold, QLD import Kristen Wadley performed exceptional well. Kristen recently returned from the 2013 World O'pen Cup in Miami USA were she took first place in the U13 girls division. She was unbeatable at Forster again with first places in all five of the point score races sailed and at just 11 years old, still has a number of years left in the class as do her younger siblings Travis (eight-years old) and Breanne (six-yeas old) who both sailed the regatta over the weekend.
In the Silver, Avalon Sailing Club's Max Oughtred continued his efforts from round one at Avalon with a 1,1,2,3,1 in the five races at Forster.
Saturday evening, was most enjoyable, with a barbecue hosted by the club on the edge of Wallis Lake with the tennis playing on the big screen set up by the sailing club.
By mid-night most of the days crew had gone to bed in the surrounding camping area, it was 3am when it started to rain, and rain hard, by the scheduled 8:30 briefing, most of the campers were well and truly awake and doing their best to find somewhere dry, unfortunately that spelled the end of the regatta and organised quickly moved in to prize giving mode.
None the less everyone had a great weekend and we have to have another regatta at GLSC sometime in the future. A special thanks goes to GLSC for another well run regatta at one of the nicest places to Sail in Australia.
Top five finishers after two rounds in Gold Fleet
1.) Kristen Wadley – Gas Bag (13 points)
2.) Jessica Grimes – Spud (36 points)
3.) Tom Grimes – Antares (35 points)
4.) Ethan White – Bob (59 points)
5.) Margot Mason – B1 (66 points)
Top five finishers after two rounds in Silver Fleet
1.) Max Oughtred – Speede (14 points)
2.) Michael Iredale – Micks Bic (31 points)
3.) David Dooley (131 points)
4.) Eamon Smith – Vega (150 points)
5.) Evie Dumas – Sprouter (165 points) NSW Open Cup
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