There are five great Australian sporting rivalries; All Blacks vs Wallabies, Australia vs USA in the pool, The Ashes, State of Origin, and the annual Double Bay vs Vaucluse Laser challenge.
Leg one of this season’s DBSC / VSC challenge was held on Saturday 17th November and was a great day in the history of DBSC. For starters, we hosted one of the biggest fleets we have ever started – 40 full rigs and 16 radials.
A measure of the struggle for supremacy between DBSC (the good guys) and VYC (the old enemy) were general recalls in both radial and full rigs fleets. Both fleets eventually started under black flags but a few standard rigs jumped the gun and were OCS’ed out of contention.
In the radials, DBSC blitzed the field with Alex South leading home from Alistair Sutherland who sailed his Celtic socks off. The top four radials were all Double Bay so this was a perfect score as the leading four boats from each club counted in the teams event.
The full rigs were won by Marek Horacek for DBSC with Mark Bethwaite second, followed by three VYC boats. The star of the show was Andrew Cox who sailed the race of his laser life to finish 6th. From a standing start to Laser sailing this September, Andrew has been racing Saturdays then training Sundays under the watchful eye of Adam South – there is now a rumour that coaching fees are going up! Other really good performances came from Rod Barnes, Matt Wenke, Phil Bookallil and Jules Hall who rounded out our 7 scoring boats. The scoring system of the challenge greatly rewards club depth and once the black flag transgressors were eliminated and club of origin debates were concluded, the DBSC peloton finished 15 boats ahead of VSC’s 7th ( full details attached).
The light easterly (with random cameo appearances from N/E and S/E) made it tricky to set and run races but our able Captain of the Day, Peter Whitley and Co-Captain Stephen Gapps did a great job assisted by Peter Hall (Jule’s father) who flew from the UK to witness this great sporting event.
After the racing we welcomed our VYC friends and shared our expanded and renovated facilities and enjoyed Paul’s usual high quality BBQ. As is customary, we shouted the VYC guys a few beers but made sure they were kept well away from the coveted Challenge shield! Good, but desperate men often resort to desperate tactics!
While the results for first leg are fantastic for DBCS, it’s not over until it’s over. The away leg will sailed and hosted at VYC on Saturday 2 February. Once again all leave will be cancelled, red meat will be dangled in front of the good guys and we will do our best to ensure the trophy that Don Roach coveted more than any other remains in its rightful place!
cobwebs (and a couple of masts). The strong wind decimated the fleets and many consider that only the brave and/or foolhardy finished the second race. To prove the point, in the fullrigs, Ashley Deacon won the first race and Matt Wenke endured to win the second. In the radials, Alex South revelled in the Weymouth like conditions to win both heats.
