We had ten Fireballs Sept. 28-9 at the RVYC Fall Dinghy Championship. We had an international flavour in the fleet as Julian Hannabuss from England is now living in Vancouver and brought over his orange Winder to dazzle the colonials. Brian Clarke, a "Lazy E" sailor from Melbourne was also in town and was able to sail with Colin Huggett. Saturday we eventually got started in 10-15 knots with a predicted flood tide which meant that we only had to deal with a small ebb current in the earlier races. Julian and Joel Lancaster got away cleanly and won the first race on a windward-leeward course and the form for the regatta was established with Dave Richardson-Rob Thompson in "Rainmaker" next, Jamie Cox and Simon Pearson third; Colin Huggett and Brian Clarke were fast sailing "Incorrigible" (thus saving on ferry fares!) with Paul Callum and Janice Hansen fifth. Paul rearmed for the Sunday racing with former Fireballer and our RVYC Fleet Captain Kirk Palmer driving the boat. The second race was tight up to the first mark, when Julian and Joel tested the water temperature during their last tack for the mark. Dave and I had a race with Colin and Julian pulled back through the fleet to finish third. Peter Gerber and Lee Anderson had their best result, a fourth, sailing the boat that Dave Richardson built in 1977. Dave and I figured between races that we had 70 years of Fireballing between the two of us- he put it as three-quarters of a century and thought it made us sound old. Not too old, however, as we were able to eke out a win in the final race of the day and head for the bar and Fish and Chip dinner ahead by one point.
Snday was windy, and it wasn't just the aftermath of Saturday night. The ebb picked up and gave nice steep waves in a puffy 15-25 knot westerly. We traded positions around the course with Julian, with our upwind speed advantage negated on the downwind legs. Watching Julian steer the boat down wind reminded me of the work we need to do to keep up in the big regattas. The last leg of the Bermudan course was too short for us to pick up the three boatl engths we needed, although Dave claimed he could have removed some orange paint at the finish line.
The fifth race was a bit windier, with more ebb, and we got away cleanly to the outside. We led at the first mark and Julian and Joel started to have troubles again. Jamie and Simon chased us hard and finished second. After lunch the third start was attempted. Two boats capsized at the start and the rest of us were pushed over the line by the current. The Committee hoisted the "N" flag as the rest of the Lasers and Bytes continued to capsize as well.
Other competitors were Peter Sutherland and Shannon Gallins from SNSYC,Laura Dunphy from Glenmore and Uvic sailing with Will Brooke, Brian Kliman and Gary Bishop from CBSA sailing the sister hull to "Incorrigible", Rob Hughes and Dan Johnson (a new potential building victim) from CBSA, and Mark Cummings from Kits but now living on the island sailing with Evelyn Chisholm. The number and quality of the boats appeared to pique the interest of many of the junior sailors- I always try to convince the Opti sailors that they don't need to give up their flat bows. We knew that Julian would be quick and I consider him a benchmark that we will need to approach to compete internationally, or against the Montreal fleet. Dave's take is that we can certainly compete upwind, and that we were ahead both times when Julian showed the orange bottom so that we should be encouraged.
Rob Thompson
Name Number Pts Races 1 to 5 1 David Richardson 14568 5.00 (2) 1 1 2 1 2 Julian Hannabuss 14680 7.00 1 3 2 1 (13) 3 Jamie Cox 14711 13.00 3 (5) 4 4 2 4 Colin Huggett 14758 14.00 4 2 3 (13) 5 5 Paul Callan 10666 18.00 5 (8) 7 3 3 6 Peter Sutherland 13168 21.00 (6) 6 6 5 4 7 Peter Gerber 10763 26.00 11 4 5 6 (13) 8 Laura Dunphy 14428 33.00 9 9 8 7 (13) 9 Brian Kliman 14481 40.00 7 11 9 (13) 13d 10 Rob Hughes 10756 41.00 10 10 (13) 8 13d 11 Evelyn Chisholm 11800 41.00 8 7 (13) 13d 13d 12 Lorna Dunphy