International Canoe Australia Championships at McCrae YC
by Christian Knott 26 Apr 2006 08:56 BST
McCrae Yacht Club, host club for the 2008 International Canoe World Championships, greeted the small but competitive fleet with fresh to strong Southerly winds on Day 1 of the Regatta.
Race 1 saw Seth Dunbar (AUS14 Che’Pa) lead Hayden Virtue (AUS10 NHP The Classic Statement) and Phil Evans (AUS1 Beyond the Fringe) off of the start line but was soon overtaken by Phil. AUS1 ‘Beyond the Fringe’ is a highly modified prototype Canoe with 13sqm of working sail and a 23sqm Spinnaker. Phil won the first heat, with Seth second and Hayden third.
Race 2 was back to back with the first race, and saw Seth open up and maintain a small lead over Hayden with Phil Evans coming in third. Phil remarked that ‘that was the fastest he had ever had his Prototype Canoe’, and he wasn’t even using the kite!
Day 2 was a complete opposite to the first days racing, with 5-10 knots hardly making ripples on the flat waters off of McCrae. Christian (AUS018 Magic Bus) sailing the newest boat in the fleet, won the start but was second around the top mark behind Ian (AUS4 I See Red) with 16-year-old Alex Kalin (AUS8 Kaotic) third. The light shifty conditions proved testing with the lead changing repeatedly, and small errors seeing you go from first to last in the close racing. Christian held out to win the shortened race in the IC fleet (Phil had cleared out to a 10 minute lead), but was damaged to badly to continue the series in an incident with another Canoe that saw them both disqualified. Alex Kalin, sailing his first IC Nationals, won the heat with Seth Dunbar second and Kevin Knott (AUS9 Superstition) third.
Race 4 saw the light and shifty conditions continue, and once again Phil cleared out ahead of the fleet but was reeled back in to only lead the first of the IC’s by just over a minute at the finish. Hayden Virtue won the race with Ian MacGregor second and Alex Kalin third.
Day 3 saw the start of the race in 10-15kt (though a visit to the BOM site shoed gust of 30kts from 1130 onwards) Northerly, which was also producing some decent sized waves. The first of 2 scheduled back-to-back races kicked off at 1030, Seth Dunbar led around the first mark closely followed by Hayden and the rest of the fleet. Kevin in AUS9 was forced to retire early with his rudder breaking during the gybe at the wing mark. 2005 National Champion Tim Wilson (AUS16 Eric) challenged for the lead, after Hayden dropped back through the fleet with a broken tiller extension. Across the line it was Seth first, then Tim, Hayden and Ian with Phil Evans in his modified canoe the last finisher in Heat 5.
Only four IC’s made it to the start line of Heat 6, Hayden had managed to return to shore and fit his spare rudder (a T foil arrangement) and make it to the start in time. Seth again stamped his dominance over the trying conditions finishing with a 2-minute lead over Hayden with the other starters Tim and Ian being forced to retire.
Overall Results:
1st Seth Dunbar, AUS14, Che’Pa
2nd Hayden Virtue, AUS10, NHP ‘The Classic Statement’
3rd Tim Wilson, AUS16, Eric
The International Canoe Association of Australia (ICAA) would like to thank the McCrae Yacht Club and it’s staff for a well run regatta, and our event sponsor CST COMPOSITES. Without your help and support events like these never run as smoothly and we look forward to having as well run event for the World Championships, part of the Sail Melbourne Regatta, in 2007/08.