Dinghy sailors from around SA gear up for Laser Nationals

Dinghy sailors from around South Africa will be heading to the warm waters of Durban to compete in the ILCA / Laser Nationals hosted by Point Yacht Club, where racing will take place offshore from Thursday to Saturday August 10 to 12.

Three days of highly competitive sailing gets under way for the one class dinghy design. The ILCA or Laser, is one of the Olympic Sailing Classes, with only one sailor and one sail onboard. Three classes of Lasers will be launching from the Point Yacht Club’s beach site, the ILCA 7 or Standard Laser, the ILCA 6 or Radial Laser and the ILCA 4 which is the smaller 4.7 Laser mostly sailed by upcoming youth sailors.

At the nationals this year, a strong contingent of youth will be competing, with Henley Midmar and Zululand Yacht Clubs contributing to these numbers. The majority of the fleet will be travelling down from the Vaal Dam, joining top class sailors from around the country who have entered.

Making a welcome return is world class Laser sailor, Rudy McNeill who has relocated back to his sailing playground. McNeill has won the trophy three times and campaigned many times at the World Championships where he has lined up against the best Laser racers on the globe. Two Cape Townians who will be pushing McNeill hard around the race track are previous class winners, Alistair Keytel and Kai Leslie.

An exciting youngster to watch is Chiara Fruet from Cape Town. Fruet has spent a patch of the European summer competing in some large regattas, soaking up as much experience as possible. Fruet participated in one of the most renowned sailing events in Germany, Kiel Week then made her way to Italy for some training events. The 19 year old competed in the epic Nastro Rosa Tour which is a multi-disciplinary regatta that tours around Italy, stopping at a variety of Italian ports. She is back in South Africa and will be keen to test her new skills on local waters.

Students Jessica Curtiss, Khulekani Sibamb and Shamir Rampersadh are also preparing for the event, havng just raced in MSC Week. Sibambo and Rampersadh are both studying Nautical Sciences through DUT while Curtiss is a Mechanical Engineering student at UKZN. All three share a huge passion for the wind powered sport of yachting and are now counting down the days until the upcoming nationals.

Also included in the line up is an international entry from Tanzania, the Dar es Salaam Yacht Club is sending one of their national sailors who has honed his skills offshore in the bay of Dar es Salaam. The budding sailor will be keen to get some international exposure under his belt, sailing in one of the best offshore venues in the world.

Two of the classes will be up for grabs as the defending champions unfortunately won’t be competing, so the ILCA 7 and ILCA 4 classes will see new names being engraved on the trophies. The middle class, the ILCA 6 might also have a new champion too as inland yachtie, Keagen Nel is keeping his options open as to what class he will be competing in, waiting to see what the conditions will be like to suit his talents.

Race Officer is an in-demand Kevin Bingham, who recently oversaw the MSC Week in July. Bingham will have the option of setting two race courses for the pint-sized yachts – either a windward leeward course, affectionately called a sausage course, with boats needing to do two laps around the two marks. The second track is a sausage triangle course, with the Lasers needing to do one lap of each pattern.

With Durban usually dishing up glorious sailing conditions over winter, the fleet will be required to complete at least four races to constitute a regatta and no more than 12 races in total, can be sailed. The first day of sailing will have a late start, with the first signal going off at 10.55am. The following two days will see an earlier start, if the wind starts to fill in early, with Bingham allowed to get the fleet under way from 9.30am. Each class will have their own individual starts.