November Endeavour Yacht Association of Australia Newsletter WA E24 Nationals Special Edition [or How the West was Won] Dates to remember

Transcription

1 Endeavour Yacht Association of Australia Newsletter November WA E24 Nationals Special Edition [or How the West was Won] Dates to remember 2009 E24 and E26 National and NSW State Titles LMYC Belmont 9-11th Jan 2009 Inside this issue: 2008 WA E Photos Galore 2-4 Looking for Members 6 Dumaresq Hamilton Island Week 7 Graham MacPherson and his NSW crew on the borrowed E24 England Expects on Perth's Swan River. The calm weather didn t last National and NSW State Titles. The Lake Macquarie Yacht Club is proudly hosting the Endeavour Yacht Association of Australia National & NSW State Championships on the 9th to 11th of January Put it in your diary, download the NOR and send in your entry now. This looks like it will be a good turn up of boats. So come along and join in the fun.

2 E24 National Titles-March 2008, RPYC W.A. Clean Sweep to NSW crews. Above Dumaresq Kingsley Green [who previously owned the yacht], Pia [of unknown surname from WA ], Neale Adams, Stuart Dart and John Crawford accept the E24 National Title for 2008 from RPYC s Peter Cook. Completing the rout, Graham Macpherson [EYAA President] and his fellow NSW crew members won the E24 National Title [Handicap] in the borrowed England Expects owned by Peter Cook seen here handing Graham his spoils of very nice Were Estate wines.

3 Crew of Dumaresq enjoying the Swan River. They won comfortably but had closer racing than the scores would suggest, often having to come back from behind from some committed WA sailors. WA s gun boat Amber owned by Pat Jones of the RPYC came second in the Nationals. They have promised to come back to Lake Macquarie in 2009 to contest the Nationals over east. Natural hazards abounded in the beautiful but busy Swan River. Despite the heavy [and large] traffic the ferries gave plenty of room to the race fleet. November 2008 Page 3

4 The fleet starts a very enjoyable 3 day series on the Swan River. Here Mistral [RPYC] gets away well followed by England Expects [GSC/RPYC]. The short windward return courses kept the racing tight, mistakes were not forgiven. The fleet was frequently only several boat lengths apart. Odette [RPYC] who finished 3rd with equal second points is seen here trying to pull in the leader. Very colour co-ordinated E24 s [L to R] Vagabond, In the Red, Dumaresq and Amber run down the tight courses. The short courses make it often easier to leave the headsail up downwind.

5 Borrowed Boat and Big Blows. How some Gosford E26 sailors learnt to sail an Endeavour 24 in a National Title The 2008 E24 Nationals were held on the Swan River, Perth, WA in March, hosted by the Royal Perth Yacht Club. Responding to a challenge by Rob Simmons from the crew of Amber two NSW crews made the long trip to Perth to make it a true Nationals. E 24 s are raced regularly in Sydney, Melbourne and in Perth. To make the National Title for this class fair for all sailors in these states the EYAA rotated the National Titles through the 3 states. In recent years the Victorians have not held the Nationals and they have rotated between Perth and Sydney. Most marks were close fought. The high level of sportsmanship exhibited meant no protests were lodged. WA crews have come east in recent years to contest the Eastern Nationals, usually with great success. In fact, they have made a habit of walloping the eastern sailors even though they contested the Titles in borrowed boats. In January 2008 a newly restored E24 Dumaresq made it s sailing return at the NSW State Titles at Lake Macquarie- winning races comfortably in heavy conditions. They had 1 race to drop so they decided to break the mast during that race. However the next morning they had a replacement mast in the boat and the [weary] crew went on with the process of comfortably winning the States Title. Not content they wanted to win the Nationals and didn t want to wait until 2009 when the Nationals came east again. They started planning their assault on the west. They decided to tow the little grey boat to Perth and compete in an interstate nationals in their own boat. Something that was last done by Chris Bowling in Corrina when he sailed to Port Philip Bay to compete. Graham MacPherson, President of the EYAA, was also keen to make the Western Nationals a true interstate affair, so he was drumming up interest with his crew to go west and have a crack at the Nationals in Perth. Graham spoke with Peter Cook who was organising the Nationals at RPYC and Peter kindly loaned his mighty little E24 England Expects to Graham and his crew of Bard Haerland, Tara Curlewis and myself, all of us E26 sailors here in Gosford and none with any great experience with our smaller cousins the E24. The race series was made up of 8 races, 3 each on Friday and Saturday afternoons and 2 on Sunday morning with a lunchtime presentation. All the courses were 3 short windward return sausages. The course gave little room for error, you picked the starboard or port side of the course and just went for it. The first 2 days saw the Fremantle Doctor come in with a 18-20knt breeze with gusts up to ~30knts. The WA crews put up their No 1 headsails and looked with disdain at us poking around down below for a No 2. Graham and crew on England Expects got away to a great start in the first race, we were clear at the first rounding mark and did a sparkling spinnaker set, first back down the course to the bottom mark and we were thinking,..this is going to be easy!!! then we tried to get the kite down and tried and tried..., finally succeeding about 20 metres past the bottom mark, we turned and found ourselves at the back of the fleet to finish last in this race. This set the scene for the regatta, it was all about crew work and not making mistakes. The rest of the fleet was always in a pack on the leaders heels, waiting for them to make a mistake and grab the lead. The mark rounding's were always keenly contested. Dumaresq who won seven of the races and broke their gooseneck in the 8th, won with excellent crew work more than a fast boat. They made few mistakes and when behind just waited for the leader to stuff up. Amber and Odette from RPYC were always up there, waiting for their chance, but Stuart and John on their North Harbour boat just held them out with good crew work. A pack of 6 other boats were all trading places [just] behind the leaders. On Sunday morning with lighter breezes, tactics came more into play and England Expects made a couple of good calls and even got a second in the last race. It was tremendous fun and a great way to get to know an E24. These are mighty little boats, you have to work them sweetly to get the best out of them. Graham found the weather helm disconcerting in the big blows and had to rely on crew to ease sheets as soon as he needed it. We are most grateful to Peter Cook for loaning us England Expects, it is a big deal to give your boat to unknown easterners. We tinkered with the rig and some of the fittings of this sleek little boat, hope it is still going well. Thanks Peter. The presentation was under the trees on a beautiful autumn day and the series was re-run mistake free with the benefit of a few ales and Were Estate wines. Graham was stunned when we won the last 5 races on handicap, you couldn t wipe the grin off his face. The trip was judged a smashing success. Stunning venue, friendly people and great sponsors. We Will Be Back. Greg Lowe Ed.

6 ENDEAVOUR 24 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS Official Results RPYC, Swan River, Perth. Place Sail # Boat Club Points 1 ST NH56 DUMARESQ NHSC 7 2 ND R142 AMBER RPYC 17 3 RD R82 ODETTE RPYC 17 4 TH R124 IN THE RED RPYC 36 5 TH R26 ENGLAND EXPECTS GSC/RPYC 40 6 TH R75 EL NINO RPYC 42 6 TH SP79 INTRINZIC SPYC 42 8 TH R41 MISTRAL RPYC 47 9 TH R116 VAGABOND RPYC 49 Membership Drive Over the years we have seen members come and go. Unfortunately of late more are going than coming. I would like all members and readers of this newsletter to contact any Endeavour owner you know or meet and let them know the benefits of joining the Association. As well as meeting lots of great people who can tell you heaps about the wonderful craft we sail, they will be able to compete in the annual regattas and get 2 great copies of this newsletter each year. The Association with the outstanding help of John Sivyer Webmaster, is upgrading the website and we are going to be putting a photo database of all boats on it as well as other benefits we are working on. These will most likely be in a separate members only area of the website. $25 per year is not much and we need to keep our funds up to be able to pay for all these things. So next time you see an Endeavour on the water, get them to contact me and I will send them a membership package. Thanks, Greg secretary@endeavour.asn.au or ring on

7 Endeavour 24 Dumaresq Grey Nomad on tour in Hamo I will try and give you a bit of a story about our travels, we could call it Is it an Endeavour 24 or a Grey Nomad on tour, or What you can do with an Endeavour 24,a Landcruiser,a trailer and $4,000 of diesel. Dumaresq has travelled 12000klms, the cockpit floor. This extra weight had a huge effect on performance. Anyway it took 3 days to Hamilton Island which included launching and motoring across to Hamo. Racing at Hamo was great fun but the days were very long. 24 to 29 mile races John &Dumaresq halfway to Perth in the middle of the Nullarbor. had the Whitsundays to ourselves!!!! I think our performance was disappointing for several reasons; a) The extra weight we had to carry compared to the normal weight of the boat. The boat weighed 1720 kg for IRC,but then we had to add perhaps kgs of other gear. b) Because we were so far behind the rest of the fleet we often had a dying or shifting breeze. c) We found it almost impossible to push against the tide sometimes. Several times we couldn t!! Most importantly we realized how seaworthy E24s are and we had fun and learnt a lot. Finally, the big advantage E24s have at Hamo is that the boat is home again in 3 days, and not battling head winds for 2 weeks. watched numerous tyres changed,5, dodged suicidal kangaroos, suffered 47 degree heat in the middle of Australia, froze in Roma, camped numerous times with a campfire, crossed the Nullarbor twice, had an offer to buy her by a fellow near Coolgardie who thought she was Ferro Cement, crossed the Dumaresq River in Qld, got stuck on a mud bank near Airlie, was passed by 1000 trucks, passed only 2 and sailed in Perth, Sydney, Lake Macquarie and The Whitsundays. We took 4 days to Perth and 5 days back because of the heat. Had 3 great days of sailing and WA hospitality. Then we decided to give Hamilton Island Race Week a go in IRC. The jury is still out on whether this was one of our good ideas But you never know if you never go! We converted the boat to IRC, with a bow sprit made from a table leg and a code zero measured in as a spinnaker. Next we had to get a Cat 3 safety, which is harder than you think on an E24. There is so much extra weight on the boat with Cat 3 that the water level in the engine well was to November 2008 take along time in an E24. Three of the races we could not finish in the time limit, but we knew this would be a problem if the breeze was not strong enough! Dumaresq handled the big seas and the strong wind over tide extremely well although the deck and crew were continually under water. Down wind on the heavier days we poled out the code zero and she steered like a dream. We hit eleven, yes eleven, knots on the GPS. It took some decent waves to do it!!! Pity no pictures! In the 60 mile Coral Sea race we retired half way because we were not going to finish in the time limit, and there was still some favourable tide to motor home with. It was interesting starting the days racing surrounded by nearly 200 yachts and they would slowly disappear until we were left out there all by ourselves. A few times we Looking forward to the 2009 Nationals, Best Wishes John Crawford. Dumaresq Page 7 Dumaresq fitting in with the other super yachts at Hamilton Island.

8 Endeavour Yacht Association of Australia Newsletter The very well travelled E24 Dumaresq [NHSC] with new Code 0 at the AUDI Hamilton Island Race Week.Down wind on the heavier days we poled out the code zero and she steered like a dream. We hit eleven, yes eleven, knots on the GPS. John Crawford NSW au Secretary and Editor; Greg Lowe Phone: Fax: Greg@lowestc.com.au CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME