CBA Couta Boat States Championships

After a season of pretty good weather that we could work around by carefully analysing the models, forecast and observations we ran into a difficult weather pattern for the States weekend with a lot of complications around the water we would sail in.

The basic plan was don’t do the resail on the Monday, so if two races were completed it wouldn’t be used. The weather was slow to fill in on Saturday and after 45 minutes the AP ashore was removed and having warned the boats to be ready to launch, the Warning Signal was made 30 minutes later.  Pretty slick work by the volunteers and bosuns to drop the course in.

The first race was a triangle with a downwind finish and all was running smoothly until our neighbours started setting up a start along the reach leg. After a few conversations and phone calls, a bit of de-conflicting was achieved and we changed to a windward leeward course.

There was a bit of a process error in this race and unfortunately it was abandoned just before the finish. After such a slick season so far it was quite a surprise to everyone.

Sunday saw us get a good race in the bag in the westerly breeze, but then it started shifting all over the place, most race signals were used, generals, individuals, APs and the N Flag as the breeze made getting a fair race away quite a challenge. The one start that did get away was only due to a wind shift that was significant enough to make the course unfair and was abandoned.

The breeze swung, a front came through and the Sailing Policy Gust Limit was reached and that was it for the day – N over A – just like that.

So a pretty hard day at the office but all the sailors appreciated the effort of the volunteers in such trying conditions.

Clearly a brutal States, any sailing errors were expensive as there would be no discarded race. And tie breaks would decide the winners.

Div 1 Line Honours were tied on 4 points between Bella and Jocelyn. As Bella had a better best score in the series, the tie break went her way. Wagtail was 1 point behind with a 1st and a 4th.

Div 2 Line Honours was Morning Star with two wins.

For the Performance Handicap Div 1, Jennifer was the most consistent on 6 points, Bella on 8 points and Romy on 11 points.

In Div 2 another tiebreak – Great efforts from Kitty Miller with a 1st and a 3rd and Mercury with two 2nds. Once again, the boat with the best best score won and Kitty Miller were the new State Champions in one of the hardest Div 2 contests we’ve seen for awhile.