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QLD STATE TITLES, 2002-03 This years state champs at Lake Cootharaba Sailing Club saw a good turnout of moths with 9 narrow skiffs including current national champ Rohan Veal (VIC) and Scott Babbage (NSW), 2 wide skiffs and 3 scows. The weather was perfect apart from the absence of the forecasted 25 knot blow which I was looking foreward to (obviously I sail a scow). Clear skies, warm days (ahhhh winter in Qld) and light shifty winds combined with short races made for some good sailing. The overall winner was Scott Babbage with Rohan Veal a close second. QLD champion for the second year running is Tim “The Joker” Phillips, in second place was Rodney Ray sailing his brother Steve’s boat and in third place was Ben “Check out my receeding hairline” Kelly. The wide skiff trophy went to Glen Thompson, who left Southport a week before the regatta and still managed to miss the first race! Mike Kohler took out the scow trophy and Shaun Thompson won the juniors. Rohan had his foils out early on Saturday morning and looked to be going fast, just how fast only became apparent before the 1st heat while we were all milling about waiting for the start when the “White Knuckle Express” came steaming through making the rest of us look like we were standing still! Very impressive! Unfortunately the breeze didn’t allow for much foiling around the course and Scott scored 3 wins on the trot in the first days racing with Rohan collecting three seconds. Tim, Rod and Ben had some close racing with none of them finishing below 6th place in any race. Glen Thompson, after a slow start to the regatta sailed his wide skiff into =6 (4th Qld) along with Mike Kohler sailing his scow! These 2 guys showing that given the right conditions the older designs can still be competitive. Yancy Smith put in a guest appearance on Sat with a 4th, 5th and a 6th, only to wuss out on Sunday and not sail at all. Mick Kelly dropped his rig after the 2nd race (didn’t that happen last time he sailed?) but redeemed himself with a couple of good results on Sunday. Saturday nite saw everyone head to the pub for dinner, it was either there or the top shop and they don’t serve grog at the shop so the choice was obvious. After a great meal and many drinks we all rocked back to Yancy’s cottage and pissed + talked it up till I can’t remember what time it was. Sunday morning was ugly for some more than others. Shore manager Joel Berg managed to stay pissed from Friday nite right through till Sunday arvo, a top effort, well done Joel! Mike managed to fix the bum sized hole in the cockpit of his scow with a piece of real estate sign and some gaffa tape, while Peter Williamson, unable to speak wandered around looking and feeling like warm crap on a plate. Nathan Schmittmann had the “Oysterhead” (ex-Lethal Weapon) wound up on Sunday after changing to a different sail to score a couple of 7th places. Shaun Thompson had a great regatta for only his second sail in a moth, he even beat his dad in 1 race and was never far off the pace. It’s good to see young guy’s like Shaun, who is only 11, getting on the water, doing well and enjoying themselves. Rohan bailed out of the first race to remove his foils leaving Scott to make it 4 in a row, but came back with 2 wins to finish up using his normal configuration. Tim pulled off two second places and Rod two thirds keeping it pretty close for the Qld trophy, only 4 points apart in the end. Ryan “the Man’ Beatie or is that Beat-me, had Emma the vet nurse remove the stitches in his head that he got after yet another punch-up he got himself into the week before. He then went on to finish his first ever races in a moth having crashed and burned in every one up to that point. Maybe those punches in the head improved his moth sailing ability. A special mention goes to Lee “curse of the mummy" Randall, who despite crashing his motor bike the week before and being covered in gravel rash and bandages for a week still turned up and even went sailing on the first day. A huge effort seeing as how his hands looked like someone had taken to them with a giant cheese grater! All in all a good time was had by everyone. Congratulations to all who attended and many thanks to the volunteers on the start boat. It’s great to see moths out in force in Qld once again and I hope to see a huge fleet at the Nationals. Peter Williamson
Other News I've just moved to the Sunny Coast and will be sailing at Lake Cootharaba from now on. We have 4 boats - 2 scows, 1 Lazich skiff and 1 wide skiff with several others keen to get boats, both scow and skiff. We had 2 scows sail in the Easter Regatta last week, Mike Kohler and myself. It was my first sail since my knee operation 12 mths ago and I managed to finish 2 of the 4 races I started. Mike started and finished all 7. The interest up here is high and it will be great to see everyone up here for the Nats. Peter Williamson |
