Laurie and I made the long trip to Townsville for the 2015 QLD IOM Titles, it was a small fleet with 11 boats. Wind pressure was light in the mornings but built to be middle to top of A rig by later in the day. The regatta was very low key and calm with only a few instances of skippers getting vocal.
While the fleet was not big and a lot of good skippers were absent, there was still some good racing with Geoff Russell (Britpop finished 2nd) and Scott Backhouse (Britpop finished 1st), Laurie and myself, all mixing it up at times. There was only one fleet, so we would do three or four races, then bring the boats off the water for adjustments and to refresh the crews. It was interesting to note the starting tape, it felt like forever to countdown a minute of random music… then the two minute countdown!
One of the guys had his home made experimental machine there which even though was 300 grams over weight and looked terrible, it performed very well and was at the front of the fleet at times upwind but lagged on the downwind legs. Very interesting to talk to him about his design, how he goes about making it, a lot of different rig set ups and ideas on what is “fast”.
32 races where sailed over the weekend. Laurie and I both sailed well and we were very consistent during the two days, with Laurie finishing fourth and myself third overall.
Aaron Farrar.