All winds available for 2014 Phase II National Championship

by Adrian France on 28 Oct 2014 The 2014 Nationals Championships for the Phase Two was held at the annual Rotorua sailing sprints. A great event of 12 short races over a weekend.

In addition to the laps being short, the number of laps was also only one lap, or maybe two. There was little waiting around between races, at starts, for postponements, or start recalls.

All races on each of the two days were back to back with only three minute warning signals. The structure could be described as quick fire. This was much better when the winds were light, so there was little waiting and little drifting, and a poor performance could be redeemed quickly in the next race.

To make the Phase Two competitions interesting, the course was shared with A class cats, 12' skiffs, and Javelins, and the starts were even shared with Zephers, lasers, and others.

Bill Hancock and Finn, in yellow Goldrush (#501), the reigning National champion, returned to defend the title, along with Stephen Rolls and Peer Jensen, a number one team, in blue Bob (#489), as well as regular Ben Howson and Matt in blue Saline Solution (#375) returning from the Auckland champs as winners ready to pounce at the opportunity, and Adrian France who was without his regular specialist protégé crew, in the red boat (#1229) with Ben. The entrants made for a small, yet colourful phase two fleet.

In the first race, Bill showed his reigning form winning the race, ahead of Stephen and Ben in third equal, with the finish too close for the officials to call it. The first three race winners was shared with three different winners, with Adrian France pushing too hard at the start line and disqualified presumably for being over the line. That was the most sharing Adrian did, returning to take bullets (wins) for the remaining four races for the Saturday.

As the winds got stronger during the day, Stephen and Peers' performance improved challenging in second place. The winds rose to a high in race 6 for a reported 25knts, that made for a great reach on the second leg. The phase two’s took out race in the stronger winds, beating the other boats in the same start to the finish.

Day two, on Sunday began with Adrian taking an early lead, but not before two Javelins choose to skewer and corner him at the last mark allowing Stephen and Peer through. While Adrian attempted to overtake Stephen and Peer in the final moments of the first race, Stephen and Peer protected their position, allowing Bill to come from behind and sneakily squeeze in for second place. The last race win clearly due to a favoured buoy end in the light air. Overall points for day two were equal between the two boats Stephen and Adrian.

Overall, after 12 races and discards the results were Adrian and Ben on 12 points, followed by Stephen and Peer on 20.5 points, Bill and Finn on 28 points, and Ben and Matt on 28.5 points.