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Club News

B14 Worlds in Austrailia - Report from the WYC boats

Posted: Friday, 16 January, 2015

After a B14 from Whitstable Yacht Club won the Australian B14 Nationals at the end of December, we had high hopes for the B14 Worlds held a few days later at McCrae Yacht Club near Melbourne. After 10 races of close racing, Whitstable boat GBR761 sailed by Chris Lewns and Tom Pygall missed out on a podium position by only a few points, coming in 4th place. GBR788 sailed by Mark Barnes and Alica Clifford came in 9th, and GBR770 sailed by Simon Hadley and Nikki Hadley came in 12th of the 40 boats competing. A good result for boats sailing over 10,000 miles from home! Click more for a full race report from Mark Barnes.

Team WYC/Hamburg SUD Worlds Report
Well the Worlds finally arrived and Day was to start where the Nats had left off, sunny and temperatures up to the mid 40 Cs.  Schedule was 2 races over 2 laps on a 50 minute course per day. The wind was light and played into Seavolution’s (Mark Barnes/Alicia Clifford) court with they taking the lead on the first beat and holding it till the leaward gate drop where they had extended to 150 m. lead, but a kite halyard malfunction saw them hit a gate buoy, spin and come back up tide to the gate and slip in to 3rd, clawing there way back to the front 2 by the finish. Race 2 and an incident off the start line resulted in Seavolution being at the back. During the race they clawed their way back to 5th, but were played on the last mark with no incident but took a cautionary spin dropping to 11th at the finish. Not to be repeated again in the event but the rabbit was out of the hat and damage done.
Day 2 and no sailing due to high winds and big seas on the beach.
Days 3 – 5 were pretty similar with late starts, which resulted in the big sea breeze filling in and increasing a bit each day to 20+ knots on the last day. A bit like an easterly at WYC with the wind bend round Arthur’s Seat, about 5 times the height of Tankerton Slopes. So it was to be a smorgasbord for the heavy teams (150 kg+) with the lighter teams being cannon fodder (-135 kg). Whitstable Marine did well to start with winning races 3 and 5 on day 3, holding on to the lead at close of play day, but as the breeze ramped up and the heavy artillery came into its own, they slowly lost ground on the front runners and by the end of the event had slipped to 4th. Seavolution in turn had slipped 3 places back to 9th after taking a bit of a battering upwind. Harken (Simon and Nikki Hadley) had been doing well and holding in there, but on day 4 had a dwonwind incident which resulted in damage and a protest which they won, so getting average points for their 2 lost races which enabled them to hold on 12th.
On the whole the WYC team gave a very good account of themselves over the 2 regattas. If the breeze had been lighter, the 3 teams would have been higher with at least 2 of them contesting the podium places. With little between Seavolution and Whitstable Marine, we should see some good racing off the beach at WYC with Harken in the mix and Leaky Pipes (Chris and Gerry Fermor) adding to the spice as well this season. 
Next Worlds are July 2016 at Lake Garda sailing in the Ora breeze. So it’s plenty of pies and beer as the breeze blows there. Lets hope Team Europe can get the Ashes back off the Aussies then.
Mark Barnes, 15th January
For the full results, see mccraeyc.com.au/index.php/sailing/upcoming-regattas/2014-15-b14-world-championships