Consistency wins the day at Algoa Bay Week MyZA

After an appalling two days of no wind and then too much wind ABYC Week finally got underway on Monday 29 April with four races for Fleet 1 and the 505 Fleet and two races for Fleet 2.

Sailed in a westerly breeze that swung to south west after the second race for Fleet 2 and in a steady breeze that increased from 8 to 14 knots sailors had a long and rewarding day in the flat sea.

With the 505 fleet somewhat decimated after Saturday’s gale that put paid to a number of boats sailing further in the regatta we had 6 boats contesting the National Championships and four yachts in Fleet 1 for sportboats.

Fleet 2 – for the cruising boats – once again had their course set to a top mark, then they were off to an offset mark off of Shark Rock Pier, to the Bell Buoy, back to the Pier, a return to the Bell Buoy, around the bottom mark for Fleet 1 and to the finish. A nice long course.

Fleet 1 and the 505′s had to work a little harder as they did the traditional Olympic course of Sausage, Triangle, Sausage, Finish.

In the 505 fleet, Thomas and Peter Funke showed great consistency in securing three bullets after shrugging off a third in the first race and are currently leading the pack on 6 points. If they keep the momentum up they could finish with a perfect score after the discard at race 5.

In Fleet 1 Orion Express – an L26 helmed by Rob Archibald – is demonstrating that consistency pays off even with a string of second places. Archibald was first in Race 1 and collected 3 second places after that to still lead the fleet on 7 points. The top three are extremely close on 7, 8 and then 9 points.

Fleet 2 has been further divided into a racer and cruiser fleet and was the subject of extensive protests by sailors who experienced confusion over their designated marks of the course. In their eagerness to go racing fleet 2 scored eight On Course Side starts and disappointment for all eight as they scored maximum points in this low points scoring regatta. In race 2 only three boats of the cruiser fleet started correctly whilst no boats started correctly in the racer fleet.

Provisional Overall Results:

505 Dinghy