Gemmill Homes Flying Fifteen Australian National Championship – Day 2

by Jonny Fullerton on 3 Jan 2017 Day two of the 2017 Gemmill Homes Flying Fifteen Australian Championships and Esperance delivered a superb warm day with cloudless skies and a very agreeable breeze ranging from 10 - 15 knots all afternoon to allow for three races to bring the regatta back on schedule.

PRO John Taylor (JT) set a short course using a new combination of sau-sage, sausage and triangle to finish on a fast reach. The familiar site of the blue kite of Nick and Janet Jerwood (Ineffable) popped up for the first downwind with another blue kite just behind. This time it was Greg Tonnison and Mark Lovelady (Spot the Difference) who were the chasers with another new face in the front pack, Ashley Smith and Adam Kingston (Ffast Lane) from Queensland.

On lap three, the final triangle, the chance of an upset was on the cards, Tonnison and Lovelady snatched the lead but sure enough by the final reach the Jerwoods superior downwind speed wore them down and the SoPYC team took bullet number two of the championship. Tonnison and Lovelady settled for second and John Wilson and Matt Summers (Ffast Lane 4) a solid third. David Yu and Chris Nelson from RFBYC broke the SoPYC stranglehold with a creditable fourth.

Race three and second of the day shortly followed in similar conditions sailing the same course. The breeze did start swinging right causing a few worries for the PRO but held in strength. The Jerwoods rounded lap one in the lead but with a new challenger to hunt them in Greg Leaversuch and Peter Barblett (Glamour Buoys) and another new player Chris Paterson and Ed Repsevicius (Storyteller).

As per usual, places 3-6 saw a number of changes but Nick and Janet Jer-wood were serving up a masterclass extending on every leg to take a third bullet. The bad boys, Levo and Barblett held on to second in a hope that their turbulent regatta form was changing and Paterson and Repsevicius finished on the podium for the first time.

The predicted increase in wind strength didn’t materialise but a slightly longer course was set for the final race of the day. This time the octogenarian class stalwart Nils Blumann sailing with Gary Warman got snagged up with the luckless Glamour Buoys at the pin with both doing turns of shame. The rest got away cleanly but ‘shock horror’ at the top mark, a blue kite is not the first to show! A new leader David Yu and Chris Nelson sailing Tuffan Up from RFBYC were in front of the Jerwoods. Brits Alan Bax and Simon Childs (Fforever Young) were having a more consistent day in third.

Bax and Childs got in front of the Jerwoods and then relinquished their second place again but Yu and Nelson remained cool headed to keep a couple of boat lengths ahead on the triangle. At last we had a new race winner but second place was still undecided until the last tack. Bax and Childs came to the finish line of starboard forcing the Jerwoods to tack and snatched second on the line. Tim Walker and Alan Sharpe (Ffollow Us) finished an excellent fourth and the ever consistent Wilson and Summers combo fifth.

David comments on their first bullet of the regatta:
“We had exactly the start that we wanted and that was really the story of the race, we hit the side we wanted to go and after that it was just a matter of sailing a bit conservatively and making sure we stayed ahead of the Jer-woods but the start was the real key.”

On what seems to be making the difference in their performance Chris adds:
“We have sailed here before but we have been working on our mid range which was the key for us, we just wanted to get a bit quicker in that range of breeze and we feel like we have done that.”

So after day two of the regatta Nick and Janet Jerwood have a well deserved commanding lead but the next 5-6 places remain tight especially when a discard comes into play after five races are sailed.

With a similar forecast tomorrow, three more races are planned starting from 1100hrs (local time) before a heat wave is expected coming down the coast from Perth where day time temperatures have been in the 40’s today. So the heat is on for the penultimate day of the regatta.

Provisional Standingsafter four races (top six of 40 boats)

1 AUS3986 Ineffable Nick - Jerwood / Janet Jerwood (SoPYC) 6pts
2 AUS3989 Ffast Lane 4 - John Wilson / Matthew Summers (SoPYC) 16pts
3 AUS3859 Tuffan Up - David Yu / Chris Nelson (RFBYC) 18pts
4 GBR4047 Fforever Young - Alan Bax / Simon Childs (HISC UK) 22pts
5 AUS3743 Spot the Difference - Greg Tonnison / Mark Lovelady (SoPYC) 25pts
6 AUS3987 Ffollow Us - Tim Walker / Alan Sharpe (SoPYC) 27pts