Quality VX One Australian Championship to feature at Festival of Sails
by Lisa Ratcliff 21 Jan 2019 01:50 GMT
26-28 January 2019
VX racing, Monday, day four of racing, Festival of Sails 2016, Geelong © Craig Greenhill
The VX-One class has delivered the numbers for their 2019 nationals as part of the Royal Geelong Yacht Club's Festival of Sail which begins this Saturday, January 26.
Alan Moffatt is aware he and brothers Ben and Josh Franklin are penciled in to defend their current VX One Australian Championship title on Corio Bay from January 26 28, but the Queensland-based owner isn't presuming a result in the one design performance sports boat.
"We have reasonable expectations, certainly within Queensland we are going well but we don't quite know how we'll go against the Geelong boys," Moffatt said humbly. "We'd like to think we are in the hunt. We won last year's nationals with OB1 and we launched the new boat, Mack One, in June for our Mid-Winter Nationals, which we won, then the Queensland state titles."
Most owners drive their own boat and stay well away from the pointy end. Moffat used to helm, including the last time the VX's were at the Festival of Sails, but has moved forward to the bow, giving up the tiller and the main and tactics to the talented tradies from the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron.
"I'm in the bow because if we win a race, I'm the first to cross the line," he laughs. "I actually got off the helm and got these guys involved to give them a platform. They are terrific young sailors; I'm really enjoying my sailing."
Dave Hyde from Sydney's northern beaches will have his now US-based 26-year-old recently married daughter Monica steering their VX One called Miss Jekyll. Home following the wedding, Dave booked his eldest daughter to helm at Geelong but until the wedding was over, training was out of the question.
"Monica often ends up with bruises from sailing and she didn't want them in her wedding photos, plus I deliberately left the newlyweds alone. We'll have a couple of training sessions before the championship. Monica is used to sailing in fleets of 70 or more; she usually owns the start line though the Festival of Sails will only be our second in the VX together and my first time racing at Geelong," Hyde added.
VX One class administrator Brett Whitbread says Fred Kasparek's Weapon of Choice (ACT) and local Brian Case (VIC) are ones to watch also.
Twenty-eight local and interstate VX Ones sailing for Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT plus overseas have three windward/leeward races scheduled for Australia Day through to Monday January 28, the close of Victoria's annual sailing and waterfront festival for another year.
View the VX One fleet here.
RGYC has accepted 280 keelboat entries and the club is still accepting Off-The-Beach entries which are likely to push the final combined fleet size over the 300 mark.
The full race schedule for the wider fleet can be viewed here.
The Notice of Race is available at festivalofsails.com.au/notice-of-race and the sailing instructions have been published.
For more information visit event website.