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They've Done It..!!
South Africa will be in Weymouth for the 2012 Olympics!
The official results have just been posted - at 21h39, after 7 protests had been heard and decided.
Asenathi and Roger are lying 28th in the 95 boat field at the end of the first three days of racing. This means they make the Gold Fleet cut, ie the top one third, for the next three days of racing. It also means they are now guaranteed a final position in the top 27 countries and therefore they have secured a spot for SA in the 2012 Olympic Games. Mission accomplished!
Congrats Guys!
470 Worlds Update
"No news yet - its the nerve wracking wait for the 3rd fleet to finish their 6th race and for the final results to come in.
Its been an exceptionally tough day. Very light patchy winds with a weak synoptic northerly pushing back a weak sea breeze. Our guys struggled to a 22nd in Race 5, which they can discard as haven't had a bad one so far. Race 6 was even lighter, and they did well to round Mark 1 in 10th place and then to gain a place a leg and finish the second beat in 7th. They held this for 3/4 of the way down the final run and it looked like mission accomplished. However, with the breeze dying away and the fleet edging its way painfully slowly down to the finish, a puff from behind brought the back markers through and a massive bunch drifted across the line with our guys in the middle of it. They were scored 15th, which seems unlikely to be good enough. So near but so far.
I will let you know as soon as the final results for the day are up."
This is the latest that we have from Dave Hudson. It looks to be a close call for 2012 qualification. But nevertheless a friggin fantastic achievement still! To up the level in such a short space of time and be right up there with the World's best is by no means a small achievement and something we can all be proud of.
Calling All Cats
The Island Sailing Club once again hosts the Stray Cat Regatta open to all catamarans and anyone looking for a great regatta and party!
Poster here, Regatta Documents, here.
J22 Interclub Youth Regatta
Transvaal Yacht Club is hosting the 2012 Youth Interclub J22 Regatta. It's a great chance for the Youth sailors to compete against each other. Check out the Poster here and find the race documents, here.
Got Some Time To Read?
Sailing With Senta books are now available as free Kindle downloads but only on certain days. Pierre and Faith van Rooyen have written about some of their sailing adventures and other things that they have done. Have a look here for more info.
470 Worlds - Day 2 Report from Dave Hudson
The South African flag flew high in Barcelona today as the RCYC guys fought it out at the top end of their fleet in races 3 and 4.
Surrounded by a pack of vastly more experienced teams, all of them already qualified for London 2012, Asenathi and Roger led race 3 for a while before finishing 4th, and held 3rd place for most of race 4 before conceding 4 places to a group of the best teams here on the final two legs. Read more here...
14 May 2012
Pammenter To Miss Leg 7
Mike Pammenter will be missing the next leg of the Volvo Ocean Race due to a back injury. It's mainly a precautionary measure and hopefully we'll see Mike back in action in CAMPER for the next leg! Read more on the Volvo Ocean Race Website.
470 World Champs Video Clip
Here's a link to a highlight clip form the 470 World Champs - it's mainly an in-port, showcase race with a few of the teams.
Holding thumbs for Roger Hudson and Asenathi Jim at the 470 Worlds - their final qualifyer for the 2012 Olympics!
With first race done and dusted (Sunday 13 May), the guys managed a 10th in their fleet. Not a bad start! Here's a link to the results.
The following was from a few days ago:
"We’re just a couple of days away from the start of the 470 Worlds Championships here in Barcelona and we’re taking it pretty easy at this stage. The boat is safely tucked under its cover and primed for the competition and our 10 days of training here are complete. We arrived in Barcelona relatively early, 13 days before the first race and only a couple of days after the Hyeres World Cup event in France. We were among the earlier arrivals, but not the first. Two of the Japanese teams were hard at work when we arrived, churning through their brutal day-in-day-out training plan that you could set your watch by. There were some late arrivals too. Like the successful Israeli team putting in just one or two days of sailing, working an angle to stay very fresh for the event. And all the many teams with an approach somewhere in between. This is one of the defining features of life on the Olympic sailing circuit. There are virtually takers for every plan, every approach, for every tactic and idea. ..... Read the rest of Roger's letter on the eve of the 470 World which start today in Barcelona here
Dave Hudson, father to Roger, the man behind Race Ahead and one of the most respected sailors in South Africa, is the coach and mentor of his son Roger Hudson and sailing wunderkind Asenathi Jim, who are today starting to sail the 470 worlds - their make or break in terms of getting into the 2012 Olympics. Read's Dave's note on the team's campaign and progress here
Here's the link to the 470 World Champs website. Here's wishing them luck!
13 May 2012
Yacht Feature
South Africa is honoured to have a range of talented yacht designers and boat builders. We'd like to share more about them with you - so ere is the first ouf our yacht features - from the owner's perspective!
The Scape 51 is one of Cape Town Yacht Designer Anton du Toit's designs. Here's the owner's take on this maginificent day charter cat that gives Gun Boats a run for their money... well worth a read!'
For more information about Du Toit Yacht Design, the Scape 51 and Anton du Toit’s other designs, check out the Du Toit Yacht Design webiste at: http://www.dtyd.co.za
Looking For A Deal...?
The boys down in Knysna are offering a once-off bargain on some F180's (F180-001 & F180-003). These phenomenal little boats would normally be priced at R165k-R179k. So, get one now while it's hot..!
Here's how to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
J22 Nationals 2012
The J22 Class has, since the last J22 South African worlds in 2007 grown from strength to strength. This event proved just that. A record entry for Nationals of 31 boats, the top tracing teams from Gauteng, KZN and the Cape ensured this event will be one to remember. With AMTEC offering sponsorship to the event in so many ways the Nationals were off to a great start. The technical team headed up by Steve Kruger ensured all boats met international standards, Dave Rushton, the Race Officer ran slick races on well laid courses. A few back flags showed how keen the racing was. I heard that the start line made a picture perfect line of racing yachts on more than one occasion. Due to near perfect winds for 4 days a total of 12 races were completed. Read the rest of Sharin Richmond's report here
See or download the full results here
Pics courtesy of Shellee Nel
Pic above: Choose Life, skippered by Andrea Giovannini with crew Dave Shilton and Byron Wyatt on their way to winning the gold medal.
NSRI Rescue the O-Feeling
Gerry Norris kindly sent in a little write-up of a "detour" they were sent on while crewing on an NSRI vessel and shadowing the recent dinghy regatta held in False Bay. Quite a good thing, as it turns out, as he is fluent in Mandarin Chinese which certainly helped things along...!
Boardwalk Hobie 16 Nationals April 2012 in Port Elizabeth
The racing went down to the wire, we had one race on Friday which started in 20-25 knots and on the final lap the breeze filled in at 30 knots gusting more at times, Saturday we had an early start with boats battling to get across the start line after 10min race was abandoned and all sent back to shore – a light NW filled in around 14:00 and two races were sailed in very switchy/tricky conditions – at this stage the Dodds team had put their mark on the regatta with 3 wins. Read more of Regatta Chairman Andrew Ward's Report here
2nd Place: Blaine and Roxanne Dodds
3rd Place: William and Lucinda Edwards
4th Place: Andrew and Angela Ward
5th Place: Peter and Dyland Swales
Oppie Fundraiser
Here's how we help the youngsters get to the Optimist Africans and World Championships this year and make a good evening of it too...!
Stadt 23 Nationals at TSC
It was a busy long weekend at the dam with TSC hosting the Attiva Stadt 23 National Championships 2012. And yes… it blew NW the whole weekend! We only started on Saturday, giving the 2 visiting boats from Gauteng chance to get down and set up their boats. We had 13 entries and tight racing right down the fleet. On the first 2 days of the regatta we had winds between 18 and 25 knots and plenty of thrills and spills. After the first day with 2 races, Tony Largier was firmly in control taking 2 first places with a good lead. On Day 2 the visitors on Aero fought back and closed the gap. Read more here...
Pic by Neville Sharwood: Pana Wodna, skippered ny Kuba Miszewski. See the results in our National Results Section here
3 May 2012
Tokoloshe Does It Again
Mike Bartholomew's Tokoloshe has just completed the Spring Championships in the Solent over the past 2 weekends and chalked up another first. They sailed 9 races and got 4 firsts, 4 seconds and a fifth.
False Bay Dinghy Offshore Points 27-29 April in False Bay
Despite the perceived danger of additional sharks in the sea, families away for the long weekend, winter weather, icy seas, troubled economy and the rest, we had 47 boats entering the regatta including a particularly strong 29er fleet. But overall my feeling is that in comparison to previous years 47 entries is a poor turnout so the phrase “use it or lose it” came to mind a few times.
In the end Jaws never showed up – only the odd Sunfish and a few dolphins swimming alongside Rob Forman and Craig Raubenheimer’s Sonnet!
Read more of event organiser Perry Harrison-Hyde's great report hereSee all the results in our Western Cape results section here
Riverview Manor Laser Nationals Results
The Laser Nationals were sailed this past weekend in Durbs. See the results in our National Results Section here
Pic by Sophie Thompson
Congrats to our 2012 SA National Laser Champs!
Marcello Marcia (4.7)
Ruben Heard (Radial)
Stefano Marcia (Full Rig)
Lipton Cup 2012 NOR is out!
This year, Lipton Cup wil be held from Sunday 19th - Friday 24th August at False Bay Yacht Club, and it promises to be one of the biggest Lipton Cup's yet! Event Chairman John Leslie and his commitee are already furiously at work organising what promises to be an awesome regatta!
All the regatta docs can be found and downloaded from our National Events Page here
Incredible Offer! This year, FBYC and the navy invite any L26 sailors and Lipton entrants to take their boats down to the Navy at Simonstwon, from now, and they wil dry sail your boat and crane you in an out of the water for weekend training FREE until after Lipton. This is an amazing oportunity!
To arrange this, and for any enquiries, contact John Leslie on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Cell 082 351 8099
Skitzo Claims Line Honours
Skitzo the Fast 42' skippered by Nigel Miln has claimed line honours in this year's Vasco Race. Skitzo finished on Friday (27 April) evening after 37 hours at sea. More here, from Sophie Thompson.
Vulcan Powered by Puma
After a new paint job and a few tweaks, Cape Town's latest race boat has hit the water. Sourced and brought in by David Abromowitz and Rob Sharp of David Abromowitz & Associates, this ex-Iberdrola GP42' will hopefully shake things up a bit on the Cape Town sailing scene.
How it rates and performs under IRC remains to be seen but I don’t think that’s the point. Reckon that sometimes it’s preferable to be on a little speed machine, disappearing over the horizon than pushing water up to the first spreaders..!
Is That a 470 In Your Garage...?
It sure is!
The Vivier brothers take delivery of their 470 brought in from New Zealand by SAS. It's all part of SAS's plan to get some guys into the Olympics. More info here.
SAS Gets A Grant
It's official - SAS WC has received two funding grants from the WC Government. One, for a sporting event and the second for the development of sailing. Looking forward to hearing more..! Here's the official press release.
Sailed at IYC? Got Colours?
Then we need you..! We received the following request from IYC, so if you sailed, received colours or can remember anyone who did, please see below and contact the club.
"The IYC committee is working on putting up honours and colours boards. Unfortunately there are no club records and SAS have lost their records of IYC members who received sailing colours. So, we are appealing to everybody who has received any colours for sailing while members of IYC, or have any records, please let us know at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . We have a board ready for names and dates (if you don't have the year, then even the decade will do)."
470 Campaign Update from Roger Hudson and Asenathi Jim (France)
Hier's Hy Nou
Sometimes it's nice to learn a little more about the guys and girls that you see around the yacht clubs, have a beer with and sail against. Here's someone you may well have seen. Sophie Thompson introduces us to Byron Watt (if you don't know him already!), a member of the Choose Life High Performance Sailing Team which hails from Durban.
Northern Region Interschools
This pic was taken at the Northern Region Interschools Regatta.
More pictures by Owen Baxter, here.
Victoria Park Win Eastern Cape Coca-Cola Interschools For The First Time
"36 years ago Vaughan and Rhona Clark dreamt up the idea of the East Cape Interschools. Coca Cola soon came on board and although we lost Vaughan in 1996, Rhona has remained at the helm and the committee of the Redhouse Yacht Club have taken over a large portion of the organisation. Little has changed since then. Doughnuts and Coke reign supreme. It's a relaxed, happy weekend where the scholars meet up with likewise friends from other schools and towns and it's non-stop go for everyone."
Read more from Philippa Stephenson, here.
RNYC's Latest "There & Back Race"
Sophie Thompson kindly reports!
Dig This!
This sailing video clip of Paul Vivian in False Bay was put together by Megan Bagshaw. REALLY looking forward to the dinghy regatta out of Simonstown at the end of the month after watching this!
Nice!
Barbara Sher captures Paul Vivian on his way to winning the Laser Radial class at the recent WC Dinghy Champs in Saldanha
SA's 470 Olympic Bid
Follow this link to the RaceAhead website and get the low down on the program and its success so far. You can also catch all the latest news on Roger and Asenathi as they train (currently in Palma) and hope to qualify for the Olympics. They should just have started the Princess Sofia Trophy, as we speak...
Dragonfly For Sale
The article below reminded me of something I said I'd post... There's a Dragonfly 800 for sale. I've seen it & sailed on it - it's definitely a well sorted boat with a very nice inventory! Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you're interested.
-IM
South African 420 De-restricted
After careful consideration, the South African 420 committee has decided that there is enough momentum in the class to be able to remove the by-law which protected the class from the importation of internationally built equipment to keep costs down. The general consensus is that there should be very little (if any) noticeable difference in the performance of a locally built vs internationally built 420.
Restoring Mercury
Restoring a classic to its former glory is never an easy task - glad some guys brave enough to do it! Read more here...
