Veal wins Victorian State Titles from McDougall with a Perfect Score.
18-19 January, Mordialloc Sailing Club

Race Program
Six races, with one drop.

With $80 up for grabs for first place, Rohan Veal, Andrew McDougall, Mic Boode, Alan Goddard and Rainer Cuno showed up for what looked to be a windy and rough weekend at Mordialloc for the Victorian State Titles.

Saturday's Racing

McDougall fronted up a lot earlier than normal on the Saturday, so he rigged his boat and went home to do some work for an hour or so. While the others were eating their lunch, they came back to find that McDougall's mast had snapped at the number 4 batten. We think the combination of a shit load of downhaul/mast bend, a lot of batten tension and with the boat laying on the side and the mast touching the ground, was too much pressure, so it just gave way. Boode kindly loaned McDougall his mast as he decided that it was too windy to go out in the new boat, and left him with the words "you break, you pay".

Race 1 - SW, 15-22 knots
Veal starts at the pin and tacks on the lay to round the top mark first closely followed by McDougall. McDougall pushs Veal for the next two laps, but on the last windward work, he lost sight of Veal and sailed too far past the lay line. By this stage Veal had opened up a good lead to finish ahead on a screaming reach, but McDougall thought he had to do another lap so Veal ended up winning by over 13 minutes. Cuno and Goddard battled well through the rough surf conditions back at the beach, but unfortunately could not make the start line.

Race 2 - SW, 18-22 knots
McDoguall and Veal start very close together at the pin on an empty start line. It was to be a very close race the whole way until, Veal nose-dived in a big way in the large waves to let McDoguall through at the top mark for the second time. He recovered quickly and soon picked up the lead again. McDougall catches some good waves on the last square run to catch Veal and then decides to sail over the top of him. Veal pushed him up and they collided with McDougall CLEARLY in the wrong. McDougall somehow thought he could get away with it due to Veal's nice nature, but Veal gave him nothing but a hail for a 720. McDougall chose not to do his turns, so Veal put in a good reach to the finish and beat him anyway.

Race 3 - SW, 15-18 knots
Veal starts at the pin and McDougall at the boat. They cross at the first tack but Veal pulled away just that little bit with a good tack to round the top mark ahead. He held his ground to McDougall downwind, but put a lot more distance into him on the next two works with good upwind boat speed and tacking to win 1 minute 15 seconds in the fading breeze.

Sunday's Racing

Race 4 - SW, 10 knots
With all five Moth's hitting the water on time, only four made it to the start line on time. McDougall opted for some last minute rig changes to his new Burvill mast and consequently missed the start by about 1 minute. Boode and Veal had a good battle around the course with Boode showing good upwind speed. McDougall slowly caught up, but lost the pace on the last lap to finish third behind Veal and then Boode. Goddard sailed a fantastic race to finish fourth with Cuno in fifth after a few capsizes.

Race 5 - SW, 12 knots
McDougall, Veal and Boode all started together at the boat end of the line, with Boode and McDougall sqeezing Veal out and forcing him to tack out to the right, while McDougall and Boode went to the left. McDougall rounded the top mark first, followed closely by Veal and Boode. Goddard and Cuno followed shortly after in the building breeze. Veal caught McDougall on the square run to the leeward mark to round first. McDougall showed good upwind speed and closed the gap to Veal, but once again Veal's speed on the square run was too much for McDougall, and had opened up a comfortable distance to win by 30 seconds from McDougall, with Boode another minute behind. Goddard finishes in fourth again with Cuno DNF.

Race 6 - SW, 15-18 knots
With the wind building even more in the last race, the race committee decided to start the Moth's five minutes earlier than normal unknowing to the Moth fleet, until Veal noticed their divisions flag flying with 2 minutes to go. Veal raced to the start line telling all that he could that this was their start. Boode only realised this when the start gun had gone with McDougall and Veal racing to the top mark. Once again Veal and McDougall had a good battle with Veal showing good downwind and upwind speed this time to win by 32 seconds from McDougall.

Veal was presented the Victorian State Championship trophy later that day with a perfect score, McDougall in second and Boode third. Goddard was also presented with the Victorian State Junior trophy.

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