Albert Sailing Club Winter Regatta - Close fleet racing

by Rod Thomas on 25 Jun 2013 Albert Sailing Club's annual regatta has again produced close fleet racing among Victoria's most popular monohull dinghy classes.

The two day regatta was sailed on Melbourne's Albert Park Lake in light wind conditions under clear skies. It followed its traditional short course format with one or two lap dashes of around 30 to 40 minutes across the three half day sailing sessions.

The Impulse class produced the closest racing with five different heat winners in the seven races completed. Silke Schwartz from Albert Sailing Club with two heat wins and a second in the last race narrowly won overall by one point from the veteran Tom Pearce from Black Rock.

The Sabre class had the largest fleet with 20 boats. Past Victorian champion Gary McLennan with four wins again sailed well to convincingly take out the Sabre Class Regatta overall win with Nick Mouat and Steven Douglas from Black Rock second and third overall.

Eighteen Lasers raced across the weekend. In the standard full rig, Matt Houvenagel, from Royal Brighton and an Albert winter member, had a clean sweep with seven wins, with Luke Thompson overall runner-up. In the youth Laser 4.7 class, Jack Lee, was the overall winner with six heat wins, with Finn Hartnett send overall. Jack and Finn are both from Sorrento SCBC and are in their first season of Laser sailing having grown out of the junior Optimist class.

The Mirror class had its Victorian State Championships in conjunction with the regatta. In a fleet of seven boats the fibreglass sloop rigged Mirror Bob sailed by Nick and Lucy Ede from Somers Yacht Club took out the series, with second overall the wooden gaff-rigged Mirror sailed by class veteran Andrew Kiel from Tasmania with crew Hayden Green over from Tasmania for the weekend.

The junior Optimist class sailed a separate course in the basin in front of the Albert Sailing Club. It was great to see some close racing in the junior class with two dead heats in the placings for the last two heats. The overall winner was Michael Parks in Swoosh, with Lachie Hartnett second overall and Mannon Rogotowicz third.

The Regatta was part of Albert Sailing Club's winter sailing season which runs from May to mid September. Full Regatta results and information on the club's winter sailing sailing season can be found on Albert SC website.