Commodore's Challenge 2022
Published 04:58 on 6 Jul 2022
20 boats signed up for Roger Mavity's first challenge race as Commodore, many no doubt tempted by his promise of perfect Force 3-4 sailing on a sunny afternoon. However, by the time the boats sailed out to East Head the wind had risen to Force 5 and several members decided discretion was the better part of valour and returned to the Creek or in one case jumped ship onto a more stable craft as crew. The 15 boats that did start were to discover that this was all a trick of the weather gods since, as it turned out, the wind actually peaked at the start of the race and then gradually fell back to only 10 knots (Force 3) by the finish with non-stop sunshine throughout.
The format Roger chose for his first Challenge was a pursuit race up the harbour to Star by way of Peacock and then back to Fenner passing WW South en route. In the fresh wind the fleet arrived back almost 20 minutes earlier than scheduled so they were all set to repeating laps of a small triangle off East Head and most had lost count of how many they had done by the time they finished!
The result was an exciting photo-finish/dead heat between Harri Goldsmith in her Laser 4.7 and Charlie Benda in his Topper. 3rd across the line was Charlies' brother George Benda in another Topper. The full list of results is available here.
At the prizegiving held on East Head after the race Roger and Jac presented prizes to the first 3 boats and also recognised a trio of Topper helms - Daphne Gormley, Izzy Oliver and Apolline Depaepe - who had shown great pluck and helming skills as relatively new racers completing the cross-Harbour course in these challenging conditions. Our Chief Instructor Chris Gorton was also given a special prize for all his work supporting and encouraging the junior racers - appropriately a bottle of Lamb's Navy Rum.
Many thanks to the race team of Roger, Jac, and Catherine Melville in Committee and Jeremy & Roz Haynes, David & Clare Benda and Chris & Oscar Gorton in the 3 safety boats.
Last updated 11:01 on 28 March 2024