International 14s at the McCrae Yacht Club Ronstan Australia Day Regatta
by Daniel Vaughan 25 Jan 2022 18:42 NZDT
22-24 January 2022
McCrae Yacht Club hosted the Ronstan Australia Day Regatta, three days of casual racing on the picturesque Mornington Peninsula. Nestled under the mountain side of Arthurs Seat, the bay provides flat water and shifty conditions keeping all crews on their toes and creating some intense racing.
The mixed class regatta of 117 boats endured 3 days of extreme heat above 30 degreesC which also sucked all the wind off the water, each day was a long wait until 5pm when the sea breeze finally took hold.
Race 1 kicked off in 18knots of breeze, the i14s and B14s were racing together on a very small 3 lap track, the narrow racecourse kept the fleet very close together creating some very crowded mark roundings in the breezy conditions. It was Scott Cunningham / Brody Riley the local hotshots who got out of the box first and were untouchable in the first race with it all being over in less than 30mins of tight non-stop action.
The breeze continued to build for the second race gusting to 25knots, right on the limit for the i14s and the tight track started to unravel a few boats, once again Scott Cunningham was leading the way but wasn't able to recover after a capsize downwind with the kite up and the B14 of Paul and Jon Newman took the win. The strong gusts and shifty conditions saw some epic capsizes and cartwheels; luckily a few were caught on camera.
The 3rd race for the day proved to be too much for most boats as the breeze had built up to 35knots with only 3 B14s finishing, the biggest struggle was yet to come though, the long beat back to shore soon became a graveyard of upturned boats all struggling to stay upright from the bullet gusts coming down the mountain.
Day 2 saw the return of a familiar face - Alan Vickery came out of retirement to sail with his brother Stewart a sight that is now rarer than the passing of Halley's comet. The day had a very similar feel to it, the high temperatures keeping the breeze away until around 6pm but luckily the sea breeze didn't come in anywhere near as hard as the previous day.
The course was quite a bit longer today allowing the i14s to stretch their legs and use their straight line speed to put some distance on the B14s, it was Anthony Anderson / Daniel Vaughan who got away well and lead to the top mark followed closely by Scott Cunningham / Brody Riley and Chris Vaughan / Matt Balmer. Anthony and Chris fought it out for another 2 laps with Anthony Anderson / Daniel Vaughan taking their first win for the regatta and then taking their leave to let the others battle it out in the 2nd race.
Day 3 became a non-event, a much earlier race start meant the breeze was unable to fill in enough to get racing under way, the short course racing favoured the B14s winning the series overall on yardstick. Many thanks to Ronstan and McCrae Yacht Club for hosting an amazing event on some very challenging waters.
Full results can be found here...