Jeanette couldn’t have seen much of the race out in front as she is only half the height of Pete Stevens who spent the weekend right in front of her doing the trimming, but she is beaming. Big brother Ron, sailing KICKING BOTTOM sailed very well and although the green machine was up near the pointy end of the fleet a lot of the time, he could only manage 5th. We suggested Jeanette should rename her boat “KICKING RON”.
In fact, the whole KICKING BOTTOM/ SCOTT SALISBURY relationship is an interesting tale. The Melbourne fleet is undergoing something of an explosion of interest and in the last few months we have seen two new boats join the fleet and we have another 3-4 people genuinely interested in buying boats. Warren Campbell who has been sailing on KICKING BOTTOM for the last two owners, jumped out and bought SCOTT SALISBURY from Adelaide a couple of days before the regatta. Peter Stevens very kindly brought the boat over and sailed on it with Arthur Crothers and Jeanette Syme and crew who came down from Sydney. So Warren, still sailing on KICKING BOTTOM watched his new boat sailed by his skipper’s sister fly by to finish ahead! Got all that! Need more?
Simon Grain was the bridesmaid again and Dave Suda, who didn’t even make double digits in his series score was very clearly the winner and deservedly so. He had an almost clean sweep with 5 wins and a second – guess to who – Yep “Kicking Ron”. Good things do come in small packages, although she did say the crew were brilliant, too. Of course the “Kicking Ron” crew stayed at Warrens!
What it does very clearly show is that you can take an older boat, set it up in half a day and be very competitive in the fleet.
A very noticeable change this year was the calibre of the fleet, with close racing, and boats that have been out the back, now right up in the pack. Boat speed was generally up on last year and so Ron Thomson’s KICKING BOTTOM, Mike Lewenhagen’s EXCITE YOUR SENSES and Doug MacGregor’s CRACKERJACK all lifted themselves into 5, 6 and 7 respectively. The HYPERACTIVE BABES had an up and down regatta and finished fourth.
The weather co-operated with 5 – 15 knot northerlies, a little shifty and patchy at times but great sailing and with this sort of weather for many of the last years comps, the Vic States really is the “Balmy Regatta”.
Although we had expected 4 interstate boats, it turned out to be two and the other boat was Terry Wise from Sydney who brought down STARPAC with a very keen sailing school crew who really enjoyed the glamour Melbourne weather experience, flat water and warm sunny skies. The tail end of the fleet was rounded out with new owners Andrew and Chris Hely on VERTIGO, Jack Crawford’s SANGUINE and another new owner Rowan Pollard on TWO DOGS.
Glam weather also allowed the social side of things to go very well indeed, with a huge BBQ at Lisa Simonov’s house ("THANK YOU" Lisa) and virtually the whole regatta crowd were able to have a great night outside in the warm weather. Terry Wise gave a presentation on the upcoming Gosford “Legends Regatta” that is shaping up to be a very big event.
You’ve probably picked the name missing from the results. Hugo Ottaway was unable to make it this year due to his son doing the big 21 party and the bleary eyed master did struggle down on the Sunday to say hi – “lights on, but no one home” look!
The class is on fire and next year at the rate we are going we could very well have 20 boats on the start line, so book early if you want a bed in Melbourne! For more J/24 Australia sailing news and results