Western Cape

David Wilson from ZVYC won gold medal and the WC Optimist Trophy at the Western Cape Sailing Championships held in Saldhana Bay 24-27 April. David sailed had an excellent regatta with very consistent results, - 6 first places and 4 second places in the 10 races. Jonathan Rees and Peter Bendon won silver and bronze medals.

David Wilson and Peter Bendon

Western Cape Optimist Championships Results (PDF 23 Kilobytes).

RSA 1382 – sailed by Ed Lehtinen in Turkey 2008 Worlds, a top of the range 2008 "ZIM Pro" by ZOU Marine

* Sailed for one week
* Grey/White Hull
* Blue top and bottom covers
* Padded spars and foils bags (blue)
* Epoxy racing foils
* 2 bailers
* Harken blocks (carbo autoratchet)
* Paddle
* Optiparts buoyancy bags with new easy-fill valves
* ZOU Dolly
* OptiMax MkIV extra stiff spars (45mm boom)
* Ready to win races...

SPECIAL OFFER: EUR 1498-00

PLUS

NEW unused WORLDS back-up and demo boat, ZIM Pro 2008

* Brand new
* Red/white hull
* Red bottom and top covers
* Padded spars and foils bags (red)
* Epoxy racing foils
* 1 bailer
* Harken blocks
* Paddle
* Optiparts buoyancy bags
* ZOU Dolly
* Optimax MkIV spars (45mm boom)
* Unregistered

SAIL AWAY OFFER: EUR 2198-00

Both boats are in Cape Town. More info at www.zouintermarine.com

Enquiries: Eero Lehtinen, 072-1433102 or eero[at]takethelead.co.za

Big shifts, variety of winds, lots of sun, nice fleet of Oppies and great fun for all on Zeekoe Vlei at the MAC Points Series 2008.

MAC coiuld not host their annual Points Series second time in a row and ZVYC again took over the arrangements of the regatta. The Oppie sailors didn't generally mind it as most of them are at ZVYC anyway.

Conditions were variable, keeping the sailors awake... a couple of familiar faces (Matthew Smith, Ed Lehtinen) were missing on Saturday for other programs but returned for a chase for a catch-up game on Sunday. Michael Crosland and Alex Lehtinen set the pace taking most of the firsts and seconds - both discarding the only non-top2 results and totalling nine points from 7 races. Michael won the final race and hence he also took away regatta first. Ed got an OCS after 3 DNS's on Saturday, then scored consistent 3,3,2. Tiran Long in "Squirrel" has taken gigantic steps in the new boat since Nationals and finished in a very encouraging sixth place. James Searle was looking good after first day but dropped slightly back on Sunday, finishing 5th in the fleet of 22 A-fleet sailors. Fourth was Josh Rubenstein who won one race on Saturday and lead another on Sunday for a good bit. Alex Burger was steadily in the top battles and took a well-earned third overall. Best girl was Tammy Shaw who is also making fast progress at the moment and clearly following in her older brother's (Matthew, SA Sailing Magazine's Sailor of the Month!) footsteps...

In B-fleet we saw promising 17 entries. Top 3 were Pierre Goremans, Marco Mendes and Peter Bendon. Fourth and best girl was Lauren Searle.

In finishing order... A fleet

Michael Crosland
Alex Lehtinen
Alex Burger
Josh Rubenstein
James Searle
Tiran Long
Thomas vd Ploeg
Nic Findlay
Loyiso Tanda
Greg Wilcocks
Murray Wilcocks
Tammy Shaw
Ed Lehtinen
Onke Dyani
Sagan Lamb
Dumisani Mathe
Matthew Smith
Heidie Burger
Cara Stubbs
Sheldon Smith
David Wilson
Brandon Smith

B fleet

Pierre Gorremans
Marco mendes
Peter Bendon
Lauren Searle
Gail Wheeler
Nicola Burger
Christopher Thieme
Alex Cassar
Dylan Long
Michael Armitage
Ryan Barnado
Patric Loydell
Daniel Spratley
Mathew Reaper
Nicolas Ball
Lorenzo Freddi
Robert Wood

Eero Lehtinen

Black Gold Spars. N1 Foils. North Sails Radial sail. Optiparts top and bottom covers. Aluminium dolly. Complete package, ready to sail.

Boat at ZeekoeVlei, Cape Town: R12 000-00

Enquiries - Graham Robertson, 083 7005520

SOLD 17 MARCH 2008

Ballistic Eyewear miniregatta. A one day and 3 race event with some interesting courses was a one man show. Josh Rubenstein found a whole new strong wind gear and cleaned all 3 races with ease. Alex Lehtinen, Michael Crosland, James Searle and Heidi Burger were the other sailors in top 5. B fleet was won by Michael Armitage.

Hermanus Points Series was a most beautiful weekend with great sailing and fun socialaising for both youth and parents. The HYC staff was spoiling us with great food and fantastic atmosphere, BIG THANK YOU to all organisers! Oh yes, the kids sailed as well. The Waldorf School Trio Alex and Ed Lehtinen and Josh Rubenstein took 1-2-3 in both races on Saturday... Sunday's hero was Michael crosland who caught up a lot and managed to squeeze into a third while Alex and Ed took first and second respectively. Wind range allowed all to have their chance as Saturday's strong breeze softened into more tactical and shifty stuff for Sunday. It was great to see some of the youngest kids battle it out there on Sunday - well done Lauren, Michael and Patric for coming all the way from Zeekoe Vlei and great to see such a promising fleet of local Oppies on the water. Now that Leo Davis's and Alex Lehtinen's old boat RSA 1327 has foubd a new home in Hermanus, we can only look forward to some great news and results from Dane Collingridge, the proud new owner of the legendary "Sting". Good luck with the new boat, Dane!

ZVYC Club Champs... a rather relaxed event with somewhat smallish fleet in rather variable weather... Michael Crosland took the title in the smallest possible margin after winning tie break with Ed Lehtinen by winning the last (6th) race on Sunday. Both top boys scored only firsts and seconds and were most of the time far ahead of the rest. The always consistent Josh Rubenstein cashed in the Central Boating voucher for third place. Alex Burger, James Searle and Alex Thompson took the following places. Best girl was Heidi Burger. In B Fleet we had Michael Armitage, Nicola Burger and Peter Bendon in the top 3. Alex Lehtinen had a lazy weekend testing a Finnish Zoom8 dinghy on Zeekoe Vlei conditions, one of the many available and ISAF recognised options between Oppie and bigger international dinghies.

Source: Eero Lehtinen

Silja Lehtinen (FIN), Bronwen Klaas and Neil Malan with help from Aaron Larkens on day 1 ran a hugely successful training clinic at ZVYC on 11-13 December. Thanks to great input from Graham Robertson, Lynne Crosland, Alison Thomson, Jennifer Burger and many other Oppie parents there were enough boats and beds for all visiting sailors from other provinces and the spirits were high through the whole event.

Training drills covered boat handling from tacks and gybes to penalties, start manouvres, time and distance... little series of fleet races, team racing etc. Conditons were variable and the final mini regatta of three races in strong south easterly was won by Alex Burger who took all three races with convincing speed and comfort. Well done Alex and well done all 26 sailors who certainly will be entering the Nationals with a bit of a boost from this first but hopefully not last national clinic connected to the Youth Nationals. Next year in???

Source: Eero Lehtinen

Variable and fluky conditions kept the sailors on their tiptoes at the Theewaters Points Series with typically unpredictable winds of the area. The range of wind speeds was from next to none to full hiking conditions in the strongest gusts, to the extent that many younger sailors missed a race or two due to white horses on the dam on Sunday.

Five races were completed, two on Saturday and three Sunday. The usual suspects manned the podium as Ed Lehtinen and Michael Crosland finished on a tie with 8 points each, Ed winning the tie-break with two firsts. Alex Lehtinen was third but Nikolai Sivertsen and Josh Rubenstein were only one and two points behind in fourth and fifth respectively.

Sunday's second race was extremely dramatic seeing Alex L. and Michael C. dropping from first and second at the last rounding to 12th and 13th at finish! Some reshuffling as a taster for the Youth Nationals?? Camping was good and both parents and the children seemed to have a nice weekend... alarming is that numbers of sailors in all classes were smaller than last year!

And some criticism towards the CT Oppie families... prize giving is for ALL, not only for the ones who win prizes, even not all of those sailors were present. There is a great number of volunteers on the water, we should at least take the extra half an hour to show our appreciation and wrap up the event together?

Source: Eero Lehtinen

North Sails Sponsored Regatta, Sunday 14 October

Two weeks after the EC Champs it was time to race on the home waters again. Nothing too serious but a nice Sunday event sponsored and catered by North Sails, our local world class sail makers!

The courses were a bit more adventurous than the standard sausage or trapezoidal courses. The committee made it very spectator friendly keeping the start/finish line right outside of the club building and the main jetty of ZVYC. Rounding marks were the fixed numbered training marks around the Vlei and little skippers needed to actually know where they were going.

This was not a problem as our gentleman sailor Nikolai Sivertsen took the role of the pathfinder – Nikolai is always very switched on and organised and had no problems in showing the way. And he did it so well that he won the first two races, making it basically a one-man-show… until the third and last race. With no discards to use it was all or nothing and perhaps Nikolai felt the pressure on him, was a bit unlucky and couldn’t maintain his lead under a strong attack by our usual suspects in crime… Michael Crosland, Ed & Alex Lehtinen. Nikolai had 4 points lead to Lehtinen brothers who had scored two thirds (Ed) and fourth and a second (Alex) in the first two races, Michael was one point further down with a second and a fifth.

Nikolai had a race where nothing really came his way. He couldn’t control even from behind the three attackers and too many boats finished between him and Michael, Ed and Alex. Michael won the last race after a very close battle on the finish line with Ed. Alex finished fourth – and Nikolai was left in 11th. A dramatic drop from clear first to fourth was something we all should try to learn from. Strategy in this type of situation is something quite different to the races in early stages of the regatta. No chances, staying close to the competition, making sure one stays in close enough contact and won’t open too big opportunities for the others. Sounds all easy and clear, but under pressure it is a whole different story.

Well done to Nikolai, the potential is there, sky is the limit! Well done to Michael for winning the tie-break against Ed as both scored 8 points from the three races. Alex L. in close third with 10 points is having extra pressure from his room mate who has found a whole new pace this season in his new boat!

Behind the top four our previously injured boys (Alex Burger and Josh Rubenstein) have missed quite a bit of sailing but are now recovering and will strike back soon. The competition is very close in the fleet with Alex Thompson, Matthew Smith, Heidi Burger, the Willcox brothers (Murray, Greg), James Searle, Thomas Bischoff, David Wilson, Cara Stubbs, Tammy Shaw and many more roaring for breakthrough to the podium battles. It’s all looking very exciting with so much new blood in the game this year!

ZVYC Sleep(?)-In Training Camp 27-28 October

The highlight (at least for the kids!!) of the year came and went once more and the dust cloud has finally cleared above the lawns of ZVYC…. It was a busy venue for two days and numbers were really encouraging. I counted 58 Oppies on the water at one stage and I was told that it wasn’t all of them! In addition we had the 10+ 4.7s also training on the water and keeping the Deary family awake for the night as Wendy and Chris kindly invited them all to stay at their place!

The Oppie gang was looked after by several coaches on the water and they were split into four groups. The A fleet was coached and managed by the energetic and inspiring National Coach of the class, Bronwen Klaas, who made it quite clear that we were not here just to have fun but also for becoming better sailors! The bunch worked hard, they were videoed and the truth was revealed at the de-briefs. Even a protest hearing took place and had video evidence proving the protestor having a clear case. The only problem was that he didn’t see a contact or him having to avoid the protestee (which clearly was the case on the video!) and hence Ed could keep his 1st place in the race and took the miniregatta closely ahead of brother Alex (who witnessed the protest against Ed and nearly ate his sailing gloves when Nikolai didn’t blame Ed for anything that would have made the difference!! Such an eye opening hearing once again and only proved what kind of gentlemen and friends these guys are together. Protest hearing is quite a tricky place to be in and some practice is a really good idea!

The training covered reasonable portions of theory and lots of practice on the water. Winds varied from very light to reasonably fresh and also the Novice fleet had some great time on the water. It is amazing to see how this little girls and boys are picking up the basics so quickly. And it is even more amazing to see how patiently our Novice coaches (Jennifer Burger, Richard Stubbs) manage the groups, year after year – WELL DONE all of you!

A special thank you goes to the Knysna Sailing Team which came a long way to take part in the camp, provided some great assistance on the water and looked after the kids during the night as well. Big thanks to all the coaches and adults who stayed at the club to make sure they were all safe and finally got some sleep too, all caterers, administrators and helpers!

A true tradition worth all the effort!

The weeks ahead

Now we are all waiting eagerly for the Youth Nationals in Theewaters. Beofre that we will have a Points Series event (also in TW) and an exciting OCRA Training Clinic for the top 25 on the National Ranking ladder – invites getting sent as we speak. We will have a strong female coach team by Bronwen and Silja Lehtinen (Alex’s & Ed’s cousin, 22-year-old Olympic sailor from Finland – www.siljalehtinen.com ). The camp will take place in Zeekoe Vlei on 11-13 December, just before the Nationals! This event is supposed to become an annual tradition and will be hosted by the Nationals hosting province just before the year’s main event.

The Sparcraft Spring Regatta took place at Zeekoeivlei Yacht Club (ZYC) over the wwekend of the 8th and 9th of September 2007.

Saturday's wind was almost gone by the time the racing was about to start soon after 14h00 in the afternoon. The race committee wanted the results from at least one race and decided to shorten course for the bigger boats. The Optimist fleet read the signal wrongly and paddled home all cheerfully screaming and chatting. Only one boat remained in the race, Alex Lehtinen didn't want to give his convincing lead away and was awarded at the end with a race win as wind came back allowing him to complete the full course. Little brother Ed had second thoughts about retiring from the race, returned to it but later retired (RAF) from it after he realised that paddling towards home before deciding to carry on with the race wasn't quite according to the rules. The rest of the fleet could only blame themselves for not being a bit more focused, all now scoring a DNC.

Sunday was much more windy, also rather cold, and the fleet was tested in different ways to Saturday. The NW breeze was never really steady and major shifts gave something to think about to the whole fleet. Michael Crosland, Josh Rubenstein, Nikolai Sivertsen, Matthew Smith, Rosie Finn, Heidi Burger and Lehtinen boys were showing the best pace from race to race and some of the races were really close until the very end.

In the last race we saw quite a few OCS's with Michael and Ed coming back, but Josh, Alex and Nikolai all scoring an OCS. Michael's last race was ruined as he took quite long to decide that he was going to turn back, while Ed came back straight away, tacked right and got a beautiful lift to bring him back to the race. Alex lead until the last rounding but was first overtaken by Matthew Smith on the last beat. At the end we saw a real video finish between 5 boats - Ed managed to squeeze a boat length ahead of a block of four, Rosie, Nikolai, Matthew and Josh, to take the last race and steal the overall second from Michael with only one point difference, also loosing to Alex by one point only!

Rosie Finn sailed well in a borrowed boat and took the fourth place to Knysna. Fifth was Matthew Smith, sixth Heidi Burger and seventh Josh Rubenstein who dropped back due to his OCS in last race, like did Nikolai Sivertsen.

Another eager sailor had to watch from a spectator boat as Alex Burger followed Rosie Finn to skipper his boat on the water while Alex is waiting to get rid of his cast which he has been forced to wear since breaking his arm a few weeks ago.

In a week's time we will see how the Western Cape Oppie team performs in the EC Championships in Sedgefield, see you all there!

Prize Winners in Optimist A fleet:
1. Alex Lehtinen 9p.
2. Ed Lehtinen 10p.
3. Michael Crosland 11p.
4. Rosie Finn
5. Matthew Smith
6. Heidi Burger

Source: Eero Lehtinen

www.Optimist.co.za: The season has started for the ZVYC Oppie fleet already a few weeks ago as Saturday-Sunday training program for the A fleet has been run under Pete Shaw's and Lance Burger's professional command. Each session is joined by various experienced sailors, mostly ex-Oppies, who are providing their expertise and knowledge to the younger generation. Also the more experienced kids in the group are acting as group leaders and assistant coaches during the exercises. It all seems to work very well and there is a whole new vibe and excitement in the group despite of the major change of blood as several juniors have now left the Optimist class for a next chapter in their sailing careers.

The younger Oppie sailors are enjoying their Sunday training in 4 different groups: B-fleet, Advanced Intermediate, Intermediate and Novice. Several daddies, mommies and other experienced sailors are dedicating their Sunday mornings to the coaching effort and the club is a busy spot on Sundays until the afternoon. A whole fresh group of 17 Novices are taking their first steps within the sailing sport with our commodore Jennifer Burger and the experienced Novice-coach Richard Stubbs in charge.

The first Sunday of September was the opener of the annual ZVYC sponsored series, but unfortunately the sponsor for the event was missing... This minor detail did not ruin the plan of action and the No Name Event attracted a good number of sailors in Optimist A and B fleet plus Lasers and 29ers. Also, ex-Oppie sailor and All African Games gold medalist, Jenny Robertson was racing on the only Zoom8 dinghy in the country so far. Jenny's smile was shining all over the Vlei and she was loving the Finland originating junior boat targeted for juniors up to 19 years of age.

The Optimist A fleet had two Worlds Team sailors (Michael Crosland and Alex Lehtinen) plus two Belgium Team sailors (Josh Rubenstein and Alex Thompson) in it but the winner was Ed Lehtinen who did his winter training in Helsinki during the school holidays and has started the new season with incredible focus and motivation. After four races minus a discard Ed scored two firsts and a third in the rather light breeze, proving that a 50+ kg sailor can also do well in the light air. Michael and Alex L. finished on even points scoring 1,2,4 / 2,2,3 respectively while Michael with his first claimed the second overall. Josh Rubenstein was a close fourth and Matthew Smith fifth in the fleet of 16 A-fleet sailors.

In B-fleet the winner was David Wilson who finished first among the 8 sailors in both races.

The coming weekend will bring the Sparcraft Spring Regatta to the Vlei and there will be even more action, sailors, classes and boats on the water while the social program will also get into speed during the two days of great fun! So, why don't you join us?

Source: Eero Lehtinen