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Toronto Amateur Sailing Club The 2003 NSW States will be remembered as perhaps one of the windiest and closest fought State championships in recent years. Toronto Amateur Sailing Club provided a fantastic event despite the sometimes un-cooperative weather. Friday provided competitors with a gusting 20+ knot South-Easterly which made for a considerable rolling chop across the course and several retirements. Saturday morning saw slightly more favorable conditions with a 10 knot Southerly, before the breeze switched back to the 20+ knot South-Easterly in the afternoon. The conditions were almost identical on Sunday, with the South-East breeze pushing in moments after the start of the second morning race. Continual rain squalls made things interesting for the final afternoon race. Les Thorpe retained his title with a string of early successes. The following three boats were separated by only half a point, with the top five finishing within six points. Chris Dey put everything together well on the last day of the regatta to snatch a close second place from Mark Thorpe and Rob Fish in their new boats. Mark's new carbon-black Hungry? was a surprise entry to most. The boat, only finished the previous day, did not hold Hungry Tiger rig-tension or racing form until late in the regatta. Not sailing his new boat due to gear failure was current Australian Champion Rohan Veal. Veal was pushed to fifth place after the last race despite a strong showing early in the regatta. Andrew Stevenson took advantage of the conditions to secure successive wins in the junior division and seventh overall. Tying with Andrew on points was Scott Babbage, who had the dubious honor of managing to break two sets of spreaders in one race (both his and Les' spare) before being forced to retire. Thankfully Rohan was willing to offer his spare set for the remainder of the regatta. In contrast to last years selection regatta, no masts were lost to the Toronto Southerlies, however both Fish and John McAteer broke wing bars. Fisho was able to continue racing with spares from his old boat, whereas John managed to affect repairs to his bars with a very hot epoxy mix between morning and afternoon sessions. Ryan Kelly and Phil Stevenson took out the sub-junior and master's divisions respectively. Ryan and Phil had some close and exciting racing as they continually leapfrogged each other between capsizes in the heavy airs. At the completion of the regatta only a point separated the two. Ryan and Will Mueller have a days rest before competing in the annual Combined High Schools event across the lake at Belmont. Moths have performed well in the open classes regatta in the past, with Rob Fish and Andrew Stevenson having won the fastest monohull division. Now attention will be focused on the coming World Championships in France, in which the current World, Australian and NSW State Champions will be competing. Race Results Heat 1 | Heat 2 | Heat 3 | Heat 4 | Heat 5 | Heat 6 | Heat 7 | Heat 8 | Overall Photos
Race Program
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