MINNOWS AND OFF THE BEACH BOATS
WHAT IS A MINNOW?Designed by Rex Fettell some 30 years ago the Minnow has grown to be one of the most popular junior classes in the country. It grew out of the need for an inexpensive, easy to build and easy to sail dinghy and in particular one which would remain bouyant after capsize. As an old slogan read: ”sailing, not bailing”.
At approx 8ft long, generally made of plywood but also available in fibreglass a Minnow weighs in at around 20kgs and sports a distinctive blue sail.
The class rules require strict adherence to one design rather than development and exclude use of exotic (carbon fibre, kevlar etc) materials.
The Minnow Class Association has plans and templates for the home builder and a number of professional boat builders will produce a Minnow in timber or fibreglass.
WHO SAILS A MINNOW?A Minnow is suitable for children aged 8 to 13, or around 25 to 45 kg in weight. Most kids are up to sail training at 8 and after a few sessions develop the skills and confidence to sail by themselves under supervision.
By the end of their first season young sailors are completing short races. The Club holds races with the novice skipper in mind. The Class Championships include a separate course and division for those in their first year of sailing.
Depending on their weight and experience keen sailors may be ready to move on to another class after three or four years although many stay in the class to ages 13 or 14.
TRAINING PROGRAMSorrento SCBC is recognised as a Yachting Australia Training Centre and offers one of the best junior training programmes available. The Club has the runs on the board in terms of numbers on the water and results in open competition. Sometimes as many as 40 of our Minnow sailors compete in the Australian Championships.That’s more boats from one club than many classes can expect from the entire country! Furthermore Sorrento sailors have won the Championship a number of times since 2004. At the most recent championships held in July 2007 four of the top five sailors were from Sorrento.
At Sorrento Minnow training is broken into three phases:
> Novice (children having their first sailing experience)
> Intermediate (generally second year of sailing)
> Advanced (those competing at the upper level in state and national championships)
The program runs from early November, generally on a Sunday morning and with a Christmas “intensive” run for half a day each day for four or five days over the Christmas/ New Year period. Much of the focus is on the water, gaining confidence and working on boat handling skills, but attention turns to the racing rules and procedures and to tactics.
Although Sorrento runs one of the largest junior programmes of any club, numbers are limited. We have finite resources in terms of Coaches and coach boats. The quality of coaching and the benefits derived depend to a significant extent on maintaining the right coach to student ratio.
At the Novice level the early sessions involving their first solo experiences on the water require a high ratio of coaches/mentors/parents to sailors. It is essential a parent be on hand for each child. Whilst experience shows it is best to have somebody other than the parent doing the actual coaching it is vital to have parental support and comfort on hand. There is no shortage of support activities to be undertaken for your child and for others, which adds to the camaraderie of a joint activity.
At the Intermediate and Advanced level specialised coaches are introduced to take the sailors to the next level. From time to time you will see National, World and Olympic Champions around the Club coaching our more advanced sailors.
Many of the children in the advanced group will have been selected to join the Victorian Junior Sailing Team where they get additional support and coaching. Our programme is designed to complement the Yachting Victoria Junior Programme.
The most important factor is that the children have fun, both on and off the water. What we have not mentioned so far is the social programme, which includes everything from BBQs, sailing on Couta Boats, film nights etc.
For further information on junior sail training at Sorrento see “TRAINING” on this website.
OTHER EVENTSThere is a very active class association, The Minnow Sailing Association which runs coaching days, a travellers series, State Championships and Australian Championships. These events are held at different Clubs around Victoria, and in the case of Australian Championships interstate. Recent titles have been held at Sorrento, Darwin, Noosa, Chelsea, Parkdale and Blairgowrie. These events expose the sailors to a variety of conditions and to social activities where life long friendships are formed. For the trip to Darwin or Queensland the Minnow Association arranges a shipping container to take the boats. In recent times a strong fleet has developed in Western Australia, and the 2008 Championships will be held at Rockingham, south of Perth.
Sorrento has an excellent record of success in open competition particularly over recent years. You can be assured there is no shortage of quality competition in home waters.
Sam Phillips won the Victorian Championship in 2003. The next year Tim Hannah was 2nd in the Nationals, first Junior and took both junior and open Victorian Titles. In July 2004 Tim became our first Minnow Australian Champion and the first ever to win open whilst still a junior. He repeated the performance in January 2005 and went on to retain the Victorian open and junior Titles winning every race. Since then Stephen Collingsand his brother Lloyd have won the overall championship and Lloyd Collings, Tom Klemens and Kate Hannah, (all SSCBC members) have won the Junior Title. With competition like that there is no doubt a lot can be learnt on home waters or that winning a Club Race at Sorrento is an achievement in itself.
Naturally we are very proud of the success of our sailors on the larger stage. We are equally proud however of the sailors who complete their first race or their first championship or who persevere to finish in trying conditions.
BUYING A MINNOWA boat suitable for the novice sailor can be found for around $1,000. It will not be the lightest or fastest boat, but then again it can expect the odd collision with other boats, moorings and anything else which jumps out of nowhere.
A top boat might cost in the region of $3,000 to $4,500.
Check out the Minnow web site for boats for sale.
A professionally built and rigged Minnow will be around $5,000.
Those with the confidence can borrow the plans and templates from the Association and build there own lightweight flyer.
The Club and Minnow web sites include a Ronstan rigging guide so you can rig your new or old Minnow the same way as Tim Hannah’s winning “Swift”
If the young sailor is progressing well and is keen it may be time to upgrade after a year or so. Fortunately Minnows hold their value and because young sailors move through the junior classes relatively quickly good quality light boats are not hard to find. There is certainly no need to have a brand new boat. Sam Phillips and Tim Hannah were both sailing 4-5 year old boats with great success.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?Contact the Club. Philip Hall or the Club Captain or any Minnow parent. Approach a Minnow sailor on the beach. You will find they are proud of their boats, know a surprising amount and are happy to share.
For class rules, boats for sale, details of other events…try the Minnow web site
> www.minnow.org.au |
