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iSail Lidgett Trophy 2017
Xavier Vandame's account:
The Lidgett Trophy is an amazing regatta that combines coaching in the morning and racing in the afternoon.
The organisers keep reminding everyone "The iSail Lidgett Trophy seeks to provide a "fun participation focussed inspirational coaching weekend"" .
Peter and Jenny Danks are amazing and instrumental in achieving that goal. To get there, their efforts and charisma allows them to get an entire sailing community (club members, clubs, race officers, juries, coaches, parents and sailors) to volunteer in a huge event (where more than 200 boats sail on Davey's Bay) centered around young sailors. Very inspirational!
The WYC was thanked many time for landing a RIB, supporting with coaching (Vince Cross and I) and providing a "photographer" (myself).
I had a group of young Optimist Intermediate sailors all from Sorrento Yacht Club except for 3 sailors I know very well: Kai Smith and Hugo Vandame from WYC and Daniel Laverty from Somers. With the time he spends in Balnarring and the hours on the water with Hugo (sparring partner), we could qualify him as WYC. ;-)
On Saturday morning, each group had a 3h coaching session. We did some exercises on the water (some kids listening more than others...) and finished the morning with a practice race with most of the groups.
In the afternoon is when the competition started and kids raced in a light-medium wind (8 to 12 knots). After a good start, Hugo rounded the top mark 3rd and with some good tactics on the 2nd beat, he managed to win the 1st race. The following races were consistently in the top 5 with a 2nd, a 3rd and a 4th. On that 1st race, many yachts were caught by the current on the top mark and failing with their starboard approach.
His team mate Daniel was a little bit less consistent with 16th, 6th, 14th and 2nd.
Kai finished 30th, 36th, 20th and 29th.
On the score board at the end of the day, Hugo was 2nd, Daniel 8th and Kai 34th of a fleet of 52.
Sunday morning, the weather was not cooperative (25-30 knots) and the coaching was cancelled.
Hugo and Daniel were very keen to sail and going in circles all morning hoping for the wind to decrease. Daniel wanted to improve his ranking. Hugo was eager to sail as he was only 1 point behind the leader overall.
When the windy slowed down, the race officer decided to split the Intermediates into Gold fleet (top 20 boats) and Silver fleet and sent the Gold fleet off shore in app 18-22 knots. All sailors were handling their yacht well. Unfortunately, they did not get the chance to race as the race boat cancelled the race during the starting sequence (30 sec to go...) as a big front was approaching.
The overall result remained Hugo was 2nd, Daniel 8th and Kai 34th of a fleet of 52.
Many sailors (especially Daniel and Hugo) were disappointed and frustrated. Interestingly, the winner (Hamish Gilsenan) finished 1 point behind Hugo at the Sail Melbourne regatta.
This was the 18th and last event. Hugo said to me (in French but I will translate it) on the way home "I am sad there will be no more Lidgett Cup. I have only done 2 but I love it. I will miss it".
Another highlight was Lucy Laverty (6 years old) who finished 3rd in the green fleet for her first regatta with Emma Lang's boat. She is a "product" of WYC through Tackers and Winter coaching.
Peter Gray's account:
Jem’s involvement in the last Lidgett was pretty brief – he got out on the water on Sat afternoon after rushing from a scholarship exam, and did not participate on Sunday, so no meaningful contribution I can give you there.
We understand that after many years this one was probably the last one open to all-comers. It’s been a great event over the years and we’ve been very grateful to DBYC, and the Lidgett family in particular, for some wonderful times. Their warmth and skill did so much to encourage each of our kids with their sailing and to participate in big regattas.
Message of thanks from Davies Bay Yacht Club:
On behalf of DBYC and all the sailors on the weekend, please accept our thanks for:
· Westernport Yacht Club’s support for the iSail Lidgett Trophy;
· WYC’s loan of a RIB to assist with the running of the event. It is simply not possible to run this event without this type of support; and
· Xavier Vandame’s assistance with photography over the weekend … he took many great shots many of which are on the event website for access by all participants.
The iSail Lidgett Trophy seeks to provide a “fun participation focussed on-water coaching weekend” ... thank you for Westernport’s support in that objective ... many messages of thanks have been received acknowledging the wonderful support of so many volunteers
RESULTS:
Intermediate Optimist Gold (Hugo)
Intermediate Optimist Silver (Kai)
Sponsors
