RSYS & RHKYC tie in Dragon Interport in Vancouver

by Peter Campbell on 2 Aug 2008
The Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron has again added its name to the International Dragon Interport Trophy, dead-heating with the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in the 2008 series, hosted in late July by the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club.

RSYS Dragon sailors were defending the trophy, a long-running annual (sometimes semi-annual contest) between members of the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, Kansai Yacht Club at Osaka, Japan, and the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron.

While the racing is highly competitive, the event is very much a social-orientated long weekend and the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club maintained this concept with what the RSYS team and their supporters described as 'wonderful hospitality'.

The RSYS team comprises three crews: Ian ‘Fred’ McCrossin, Markin Burke and Rick Hall (Riga); Robert Alpe, Rex Harrison and Richard Sackelariou (Toogara); and Martin Cooper, Lawrence Hinchcliffe and John Roberts (Imagination).

The Vancouver fleet provided the boats and working sails, with each team able to bring their own spinnakers. Teams changed boats each day.

Conditions could not have been more perfect for this years Interport, the sun shone, the winds were consistently northwest at between 8 and 15 knots and everyone had a good time.

Sailing began at between 1000 and 1100 in the morning and was completed by 1600 each day. The race course was kept short (at about 1.5 nm) and an attempt was made to get nine round robins done each day. This was not accomplished but sufficient races were completed to allow the results noted above.

The race course was a figure eight and involved a start about one third of the way between the leeward and weather marks. Two weather and two leeward marks were set and the first leg was a beat to the first weather pin which were rounded to port, then a short reach to the second weather pin (a distance of about 50 metres).

After rounding this second mark spinnakers were hoisted and the boats ran to the first of the leeward marks which was left to starboard, then again a short reach to a second mark and finally a beat back to the finish. It was great fun and everyone seemed to enjoy the fact that the boats were always very close.

Nine dragons (three boats per team) were used for the racing with six being on the course at any one time. After a race was completed the next race was started almost immediately with one team from the previous race always racing the team that had been waiting for the race to be completed.

The course took between 20 and 30 minutes to complete so the wait for those not racing was short and relaxing (sufficient time for a beer and a sandwich).

Over a weekend of sailing on English Bay, 24 team races were completed over these short courses in steady breezes between RSYS, RHYC and RVYC, the end result being a tie between Sydney and Hong Kong for first with RVYC third.

Several final day protests were settled amicably ‘out of court’ in time for the prizegiving dinner, with competitors agreeing that the names of both the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club should be engraved on the Interport Trophy. This is first time two clubs have shared the honours in some 26 years of competition.