The Story of Water Rat's 2006-7 Nationals Success
(By Lindsay Mason and Rohan Nosworthy)
“WATER RAT” BOAT SETUP
Last season “Water Rat” (Lindsay and Emma) came 3rd and “Sirocco” (Rohan and Neil) 4th at the Gosford Nationals, with crew weights either side of the optimal range. Both boats showed bursts of speed during this series however it was felt that the boats could go even quicker if the weights were closer to the average. Thus it was decided that Water Rat would be sailed at the Sunshine Nationals with Rohan skippering and Lindsay crewing.
- Hull – Tiger Design, built by Mark Thorpe
- Foils – Carbon from Mark Thorpe
- Mast – Flightspar Mk 2
- Boom and Retractable Bowsprit – Carbon from CST
- Kite – Sailflite Sails (Kerry Gibson)
- Mainsail – Brand new Sailflite Sails
- Jibs – 1 standard and one light-weather Barracouta Sails (Neil Tasker)
- LEAD UP TO NATIONALS
“Water Rat” also won a very close St George Club Championship, from the National Champion “Xanadu”. The boats downwind speed was good, so the current Sailflite kite was retained since it was in good condition and had only been used for previous championship events. It was felt the upwind speed could be improved so a new mainsail and a light-weather jib were ordered. The standard weight jib was new for the Gosford Nationals and hadn’t been used since.
Since Lindsay has only every skippered before, he spent the first half of the season sailing club races at St George as a crew with various guest skippers, as Rohan was tied up with other commitments. We ensured that we sailed together at the Gosford TT event (which was the only association event prior to the Nationals) and we did one final sail together at a St George sprint series day, the weekend before Xmas.
Following the Gosford TT event, we realised that our upwind speed was good and that if we sailed conservatively, avoiding mistakes and gear breakdowns then we had a good chance at winning the title. Thus in the month proceeding the Titles, the whole boat was checked over for wear and tear and the majority of ropes were replaced. A maintenance routine was also followed everyday at the Nationals with a quick visual check of the boat at the end of each race and first thing each morning.
NATIONALS STRATEGY
By the start of the first heat of the Nationals, we had identified that our biggest strength was our boat speed (in particular, upwind) and that our biggest weakness was Lindsay’s lack of experience as a crew (an obvious weakness when you put two skippers on a boat together). Thus our strategy was to get clean starts, avoid any unnecessary and risky manoeuvres (like tacking duels, late kite drops, etc) and not to be too impatient. With the courses being set with a long upwind leg to the finish, we had an advantage that the final leg always favoured us. On a number of occasions we rounded the final mark, in second spot and were able to go on and win those heats. This ability to be able to sail relatively conservatively also enabled us to be consistent throughout the series, leading to our discard heat being a second. On any particular day there were 3 or 4 boats who had boat speed as quick (and sometimes quicker) than us, however by sailing more conservatively, we avoided mistakes at critical times.
Lindsay Mason and Rohan Nosworthy
test