SSCBC sent one and a half teams to the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania 2K event over 25/26 May.
- 2K is team racing format in open keelboats – 2 boats on 1 team vs 2 boats on the other team
- The team with last place loses
- Our teams learnt and developed exceptionally well
- 4 of the team members had not gone to one of these regattas previously, so that was great to see the continued expansion of this group
- All sailors had sailed a Couta Boat in the past season, so this is working with the group that is building the available Couta Boat crew pool at the club
- The boats were Elliot 6s – Like a Jubilee (open keelboat no cabin) but modern and nimble – No spinnakers
- 1 of our teams of two boats was all Sorrento and the other 3 sailors sailed with a combined Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club team. Our sailors helmed both boats in that team.
To get an idea of what the racing is like, have a look at this great footage of the duel between the all SSCBC team in boats 3 & 4 and the SSCBC/NCYC team in boats 1 & 2. It is quite tough and tactical racing.
In 20 seconds there are three separate incidents and the boats had to know and apply rules 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 19 and the definitions room, keep clear, obstruction, tack, port, starboard, clear ahead; multiple times – so there was a lot on.
The two Tasmanian teams had extensively trained and campaigned in Elliot 6 and had experienced match racing helms – they were in a much more advanced stage of development than everyone else.
Over the course of the regatta our teams turned experience into higher performance and results better than any other teams – we shared learnings and debriefed together so we improved and developed better than the others and this culminated in knocking off the top Tassie team in the last race against them.
The all Sorrento team was 3rd and the combined team was 4th – good results but somewhat irrelevant in the scheme of things, as this was all about development and we exceeded expectations of how fast we could grow.
It was a great tone with the mixed gender and the ages of our team members spanned 30 years.
Pictured L to R: Tom Trotman, Kate Hannah, Charlotte Llewelyn, Jack Lewis, Jack Lloyd and Hugo Llewelyn. Other SSCBC team Members included David White, Ben Fels, Tom Chisholm and Michael Fels.
