S80 National and Victorian Championship – Regatta Report

by Bas Huibers, Philip Endersbee, Roger Hickman on 21 Jan 2005 The 2005 National and Victorian S80 Championships were last weekend won by ‘Wilderness Wear’, skippered by Philip Endersbee.

The Sail Melbourne S80 National and 20th Jubilee Victorian Championships were held from 14-16 January 2005 at Sandringham Yacht Club (VIC) and consisted of seven short course heats and a long distance course. Twenty-eight Swarbrick 80s sailed the championship, an all time record for the class in Victoria.

The Championship fleet is becoming stronger and stronger, highlighted by the fact that there were 5 different heat winners during the championships where in the past the heats were often won by one or two dominating boats.

The first heat on Friday morning was a windward leeward course in a ten knot breeze, designed too ease everyone’s nerves and get the championship underway. In just under an hour, this heat was won by former Victorian Champion ‘Intrusion’, skippered by Luke Reinehr, followed by ‘Wilderness Wear’ in second place.

The second heat on Friday was an 18nm long distance course around channel and club marks on Port Phillip. With a breeze at the start of 10-15 knots this promised to become a nice cruise at temperatures around 30 degrees. The truth turned out to be different; at around 2pm, about two-thirds into the race, a sudden increase in wind strength to 20-30 knots caught the fleet by surprise. Most boats were just starting the last long beat from Port Melbourne to the Fawkner Beacon. Some were hoping it wasn’t going to last and tried to hang onto their no.1 genoas for as long as they could. The breeze did continue at this strength however, and all who changed to their smaller headsails gained significant places over those that struggled to keep it together going to windward. The winner of this most exhausting race of the series was ‘Intrusion’, who held onto their no.1 genoa and only just kept ‘Moondah’ (Grant Hailes) with a smaller headsail of their stern. ‘Wilderness Wear’ blew the pulleys out of both of their mainsail sheet blocks as they bounced off a wave upwind and used 15 metres of spectra to lash the boom to the traveller and hold onto a fourth place finish.

Saturday’s weather dished up varying breezes between 5 and 10 knots for the first three windward leeward races of the day. Difficult conditions to keep good boat speed, pick the right wind shifts and course sides. Towards the end of Heat Three, the breeze started to increase to around 20 knots, so even though it was late in the day, the race committee decided to take this opportunity and conduct the fourth scheduled race of the day as a short course with two half mile beats and two runs. Due to the relative short beats, the first part of this race was extremely exciting, with 28 boats trying to lay and round the first windward mark within less than a minute or so. ‘Intrusion’, coming in on port tack at the windward mark, collided with ‘Kasam’ (Wayne Cullen) and subsequently ‘Espresso’ (John Arnold). They took a 720, but after both protests from ‘Espresso’ and ‘Kasam’ had been heard later that day, the jury ruled that these were two separate incidents and ‘Intrusion’ should have taken two 720s and hence were disqualified from this heat.

The challenging and varying conditions during this long day of racing resulted in four different heat winners for the day: ‘Serious Yahoo II’ (Tim Brown), ‘Esprit’ (Mike Carter), ‘Imaginer’ (Philip Martyn) and ‘Wilderness Wear’.

With two more race to go, the progressive leader was consistent performer ‘Wilderness Wear’. Luke Reinehr and his crew on ‘Intrusion’ were hoping that both races on Sunday would be sailed, so that they could drop their DSQ in the overall result. Intrusion needed to beat Wilderness Wear in the last two races on Sunday to win the championship on count-back.

Heat Seven, the first race on Sunday morning was held in 10-15 knot conditions, but due to overnight winds of 15 –20 knots, waves on the course were disproportionate to the wind strength, making it difficult to keep the boats ‘in the groove’. This problem became worse in the final Heat Eight when the breeze dropped to round 10 knots. In these difficult conditions, the winner of Heat Seven was ‘Intrusion’, turning the final heat into a show-down between them and ‘Wilderness Wear’.

This deciding final heat put enormous pressure on the ‘Intrusion’ and ‘Wilderness Wear’ crews, were the race winner would be the Victorian and National Champion. The race started in about ten knots of breeze and as much as the shifting winds played havoc with the fleet, the first six boats went round the first mark within a couple of seconds. The race comprised of two beats and two runs and over the next hour came down to ‘Intrusion’ going round the last mark, three seconds ahead of ‘Wilderness Wear’, with a short run home to the finish. As the boats tacked down wind, ‘Wilderness Wear’ sailed through ‘Intrusion’ and pulled away to win by ten boat lengths and take the title.

With this win in Heat Eight, Phillip Endersbee and his crew on ‘Wilderness Wear’ proved to be the deserving Victorian and National Champion, two points clear from Intrusion (Luke Reinehr). Third place was taken by Serious Yahoo II (Tim Brown). The structure of this final result is typical for big fleets in one design, where consistent performance (by ‘Wilderness Wear’ in this case) is often more important than the number of wins in the series.

John Hall, the President of the S80 Association of Victoria presented the Championship trophy to ‘Wilderness Wear’ skipper Phillip Endersbee. He thanked his crew, which includes well known ocean racing yachtsman Roger Hickman as tactician.

Philip, Roger and the rest of the ‘Wilderness Wear’ crew are in fact regular members of Ichiban’s crew, a Farr 52, campaigned by Matt Allen. Endersbee and Hickman have both sailed together since they were 13 years old and as much as they have won many regattas and titles together, a National one design title has always eluded them. Both agree that the S80 is the only one design keelboat class in Australia that gets these large entry numbers and it even better, it doesn’t need a million in the bank to successfully campaign one. The racing is close, the camaraderie amongst the skippers and crew is truly enjoyable. All up a fantastic class.

‘Espresso’, skippered by John Arnold won the “Most Improved Trophy” which is based on a special S80 rating that determines the boat that has improved most since previous year’s championship.

Next year’s National S80 Championships will most likely be held in Perth, whilst the Victorian Championships at the Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron in January, will act as a qualifier event for these Nationals in March.

The S80 class with 37 boats in Melbourne, a similar number in Perth and a few others around the rest of the country, is one of Australia’s largest one design keelboat fleets. For more information look on http://www.s80.org.


National and Victorian Championship Results

1st Wilderness Wear, Philip Endersbee – 2,4,(8),5,5,2,1: Total 20 points
2nd Intrusion, Luke Reinehr – 1,1,13,2,2,(DSQ),1,2: Total 22 points
3rd Serious Yahoo II, Tim Brown – 7,3,1,11,(12),6,7,3: Total 38 points

Victorian Championship - most Improved Results (S80 rating)

1st Espresso, John Arnold – 1,3,(16),3,9,2,1,3: Total 22 points
2nd Wilderness Wear, Philip Endersbee – 4,9,(14),8,6,1,5,1: Total 34 points
3rd Esprit, Mike Carter – 2,11,(17)1,2,3,2,13: Total 34 points