I’m sure every sailor gets that feeling of destination fever when heading out of Sydney for a weekend away. Having the car packed with enough water based toys for any adventure fills one with such a positive feeling that no matter what there will be fun to be had.
Unfortunately the usual sea breeze or southerly wind pattern that makes Flat Top such a great venue got destroyed by an east coast low over the long weekend. However we did get over an hour sailing in during the frontal bursts of easterly wind and enough time to run a fun all in expression session for all competitors. Notable standouts were Nick Auston with his 360 attempts in the lagoon, Anthony Frith with a fully planning Vulcan and numerous duck gybe attempts by everyone. Jimmy Houghton landed a nice forward and aerial Shovit in the onshore waves while Ollie Barter showed that his new Naish sails have plenty of power to get a tweaked tabletop. Alan Bailey in the masters showed that 3 weeks in Mauritius has cleaned out the winter cobwebs while Jessica Juretic and Jake Juretic practiced their onshore sailing skills. Anne Waldron flew the flag for the ladies and bought lots of JP, Neil Pryde, North and Fanatic toys for competitors to try courtesy of WindSurfnSnow.
On the social side NSW WA organised a great curry night on the Saturday and managed to get the function room at the Seaview Tavern for a private screening of the NRL Grand Final. Despite a less than promising forecast it was very encouraging to see so many competitors and their families turn up for the event. A special thank you must go out to all those partners, wives and kids who made the trip. It’s great to see conversation flow so easily between everyone and cover more than just the benefits of carbon fibre boom ends.
As usual Ask Huey were more than generous as event sponsors and everyone walked away with free sunscreen and a pen. Over a dozen pairs of those very nice Ask Huey sunnies were given to Event 1 winners and the standout sailors from Saturday’s sailing. Please checkout Ask Huey’s new website as it’s very tidy and can be easily customised for your local sailing location.
Date: 2nd – 4th October 2010
Unfortunately only rain greeted competitors at the 10:00am skippers meeting and the event was eventually called off at midday. A tough call by the judges but in retrospect the weekend did not provide any contestable sailing conditions. Nick Auston did get out from the main beach for a few fun waves as did a couple of hardy SUPpers, Ben and Mark, and a lone kite surfer who made the most of the flat conditions close to shore. The heavens opened Monday morning and most competitors made the trip home through localised flooding on the north coast.
Let’s hope Event 3 November 20th at Gerroa brings some great conditions. A few competitors in the Pro’s have been working on some secret moves during the winter months to give Dan Berry a run for the title which will hopefully be unveiled at the comp.
