It’s all about crew work

by Rob Kothe on 20 Mar 2005 One Design offshore fleet racing certainly provides a most testing battleground and this weekend’s Sydney 38, Sydney 32 and Etchells raced offshore in the RPAYC’s Palm Beach Regatta.

As with yesterday, there was again 15-20 knots, while there was fewer roller coasters than offshore steering techniques and crew work in the bumpy conditions determined the outcome of the regatta.

In the Sydney 38 Class, this was clearly outlined when Justin Lambeth, back on the wheel after a year away, but with a champion London Tavern crew had results of 2,3,2,3 in the 19 boat fleet to win from one of the form boats of the last season Steve Kulmar’s Shining Sea, who had a 7,1,1,2 result.

A beaming Justin Lambeth commented dockside this afternoon.

‘I did not have high hopes going into this regatta, I knew I was rusty, but as it turned out, most of the recent racing for the class has been flat water, as in the 2005 Skandia Geelong Week Nationals. So everyone had to get used to the chop again.

In race three today, we found clear lanes and picked the shifts for a second. In the last race we thought we’d blown it. To get to the favoured right, we ended up ducking sterns, we just kept pushing on. Finally we found the shift and we were rewarded at the first mark.

The second part of the race was match racing with Steve Kulmar, we needed to keep within a place of him and we did that.

I really have a champion team and their crew work was fantastic.’

More details in the morning.

Full results for all divisions at www.rpayc.com.au