On Deck at Deckhardware Sydney 38 Nationals

by Simon Reffold on 5 Mar 2006 Day two of the Deckhardware Sydney 38 One Design National Championships started off under brilliant sunshine with a nice little south easterly over a sloppy two metre swell, unfortunately for the competitors this then turned into what is descriptively called a ‘Sick Easterly’ by Sydney Sailors.

If a day is a long day in politics then it is a lifetime in competitive sailing. A Sick Easterly is not a good thing, especially if you’ve been well placed before its arrival.

With it, you can be guaranteed tales of woe as sailors battle with the vagaries of a frequently shifting breeze and struggle to get their boats powered up, it often results in very mixed results with even the best sailors getting the wrong end of a shift or stuck deep at the start, today was no exception.

Yesterday afternoon Martin & Lisa Hill (Estate Master, MHYC) would have been forgiven for thinking they were in pretty good shape but a tenth in the fifth race and fifth in the sixth race put them right back into the pack.

As they descended Guido-Belgiorno Nettis sailing Transfusion (MHYC) showed a return to form recording a 1, 1, and 3, showing excellent consistency on a tough day. Combining good starts and solid tactics – especially in the telling first beats, Transfusion were by far the boat of the day and they are now just two points behind Estate Master going into the last day and final three races.

Also showing good consistent form was Geoff Bonus’ Calibre (CYCA). A 2,10,2 kept them up the top of the leader board and well in touch with the top two – especially given the fact that everyone seems to be having at least one 'serious shocker'. In fact it would be fair to say that, based on the highly volatile nature of the results; at least ten boats are still in with a real shot of a top three place.

Easy Tiger was a genuine victim of the day. After the second race today (race 6) they were tied in third place with Calibre – but struggled with boat speed as the breeze dropped and they finished a depressing 20th in the seventh race, relegating them to eighth overall.

Acuity (Tony Walls, RPAYC), Contentious Issue (Geoff Masters, RPAYC) and Outlaw (Tom & Alan Quick, CYCA) all had a couple of good results and one 'Barry Crocker'. (For our international audience, it's rhyming slang for a shocker. Ed.)

In the 'no drop format', consistency is rewarded and therefore a bad result counts against your score and is costly. All these boats, whilst having some solid and entirely creditable results have also recorded, some bad ones make it tough (but not impossible) for them to challenge the top three. What will also affect the results is the raft of protests lodged during the day. At the time of writing, there were four lodged and another couple pending the outcomes of gentlemanly discussions, in the car park.

Of the guys not in the top ten, The Bigger Picture (Anthony Hooper, RPAYC) and Howarth BRI (Tony Levett, MHYC) should both rest well tonight after showing a dramatic improvement in results today over yesterday – both have mixed it with the top boats on day 2, and if they keep this form up may well make it to the top half of the fleet.

With the Hamilton Island InterNations now only four days away and the addition to the fleet of such notables as Etchells Champion Cameron Miles and past Offshore Sailor of the Year Matt Allen, the pressure is on all these sailors to find consistent form going into the first International Event for the Sydney 38 Class.


Provisional results pending the outcomes of protests

Race1 Race2 Race3 `Race4 Race 5 Race 6 Race 7 Race 8 Race 9 Race 10 Total
Estate Master 1 1 5 2 10 5 1 25
Transfusion 12 3 2 5 1 1 3 27
Calibre 4 9 4 7 2 10 2 38
Acuity 9 5 9 8 5 8 5 49
Shining Sea 18 2 6 1 14 2 10 53
Outlaw 13 12 1 3 16 4 4 53
Contentious Issue 3 11 10 9 12 3 7 55
Easy Tiger 6 10 3 6 4 7 20 56
AMI Jade 2 7 12 18 3 12 19 73
Star Dean Willcocks - Yeah Baby 5 4 7 21 7 14 15 73
Zen 10 8 16 4 21 19 6 84
Eye Candy 7 6 17 14 13 20 11 88
Chutzpah 20 14 18 13 8 9 16 98
Uplift 8 19 14 20 17 6 14 98
The Bigger Picture 15 15 21 10 9 17 12 99
Stonybroke 17 18 15 15 15 13 8 101
Risk 16 17 19 11 19 16 9 107
Livewire 11 21 8 12 20 18 18 108
Horwath BRI 14 20 20 22 11 11 11 109
The Bolter 21 13 11 17 18 15 21 116
Swish 22 16 22 19 18 21 17 135
Uncensored 19 22 13 16 22 22 22 136