2021 NSW All Schools Sailing

In the first term school holidays Ziggy Ewart (Yr 9) & Riley Armstrong (Yr 9) competed in the NSW All Schools Sailing Championships on Lake Macquarie at Belmont NSW.  If you would like to read a story about perseverance and patience please read on.  Thanks for sharing boys.

"We only just stepped up into a new class of boat. (12 foot skiff) About two weeks before we went to Belmont we were struggling to keep the skiff upright for more then 10 minutes.

The first day was really light and the race had been postponed until the wind filled in. When we launched we tipped three times in the 200 meters to get to the start line. After we got all the water out of the boat we got going again and didnt tip once throughout the rest of the race.

The second day the wind was a little stronger but still pretty light. The first race wasn't too bad. The second race we had a terrible start, but because we were behind we went to the other side of the course while we were zig-zaging into the wind (as sailboats can't sail directly into the wind) in hope that the wind would shift and would allow us to point more towards the bouy. Sure enough the wind shifted 90° and we had the boat going straight towards the mark. We went around the 1st mark in second place as the wind shift was a disadvantage to everyone else. We put our big green sail up and started cruising towards the next mark. We went around the next mark still in second but as we approached the third mark we had to pull our green sail down to start working our way back into the wind. As I came back into the boat we had a tiny stuff up with the steering which caused us to go for the first swim of the day. All the boats went past us as we struggled to right the boat as we are about 70Kg underweight. Once we got going again we were in last. We worked our way back up the ladder and finished around mid fleet.

The third day was not too bad. We had a couple rigging issues with our green sail which led to some interesting rides. That afternoon we took our mast down as we were thinking we might be using a smaller rig because of high winds forcasted for the next day.

When we arrived on the last day it wasn't to strong but there was a nice breeze. We decided to put the big rig us as it would allow us to go faster and we thought we could handle it. All the other skiffs decided to go the smaller rig.  (good move) Just before we launched we decided to swap out our green sail for a slightly smaller one as that only took 5 minutes to change. When we got out on the water we instantly realised we were way over powered. It takes about 2 hours to change to a smaller rig and the race started in 5 minutes. So we started and had the boat going fast. When we got to the first mark we were only just behind the other boats. (Our class of boat is slow when it goes into the wind compared to other boats. But it is a lot faster when it is going with the wind).  We wasn't too worried as we knew we would catch them. Only took a couple minutes and we had caught them and still had a bit to go till the next mark. As we came around the mark we were near 5th. But we put it in the drink again pulling our sail down. So we were at the back again. We had things break for the next couple laps and didn't place very good in that race. We felt the wind dropping so we quickly went back to the beach to put our bigger green sail on again.

The last race of the series was our best as all the other boats had smaller rigs on. The way the handicap works means our boat scores really well in strong winds but not as well in light winds. Due to the whole event being light wind all the fast boats got pushed back places and the slower boats ended up winning.

Anyone wanting to try sailing can turn up to queens lake sailing club on saturdays between September and Anzac day."

Ziggy Ewart & Riley Armstrong

25th April 2021