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Wow! What an absolutely brilliant day’s racing the Lipton Cup contenders had on Saldanha Bay today. The top three contenders for the Lipton Cup gave those lucky enough to follow them live on the water, a spectacle of top-class tactical yacht racing. No quarter was given, no effort was spared while the crews gave a display which proved beyond doubt that they are the very best. After races 8 & 9 today, the honours simply reverted back to what they …

Two sailing master-classes on Day 4 of the Lipton Challenge Cup proved conclusively that the best sailors in the country are competing for the honour of holding the Lipton Cup aloft after the 10th race on Saturday. Two races, 6 & 7, were sailed today in winds between 10 and 15 knots from the South, with just a single point separating the top three boats – with second and third tied equal on points. So there is everything to play …

The defending Lipton Cup team, Nitro sailing for Witbank Yacht & Aquatic Club (WYAC), won the third and final compulsory race of the 2021 Lipton Cup going away from the fleet in grand style. Today was one of those very tricky ones with shifty wind directions, and speeds going up and down. The only saving grace was the flat water. An inland sailor who knows the Witbank Yacht & Aquatic Club team well said that their flat water experience was …

Today was a great day for highly competitive yacht racing as Saldanha Bay produced all the ingredients for this – wind, flat seas, a few shift and more importantly two highly competitive and closely fought races. But it was a day of roosters and feather dusters as the leaders kept extending their leads, whilst the rest of the fleet threw everything possible at them in an attempt to snatch the lead. Sadly for them these tactics did not work and …

Two wins in two consecutive races is nothing to be sneezed at, yet this is what the Challengers of Record, the Royal Cape Yacht Club, achieved on the first day of the Lipton Cup on Saldanha Bay. It was a tough and long day as racing did not start on time due to there being no wind initially, and as the race started on the quadrilateral course, the wind began picking up into the late teens from the North, and …

by Richard Crockett While this event is a true challenge between the very best yachties in our country, it has been COVID which has been the challenge this week – or should I say the scourge of the Lipton Cup? Of the five teams competing the Zeekoe Vlei Yacht Club team will not start tomorrow as the entire team is in isolation until Wednesday, but on Thursday they are sure to come out fighting with renewed vigour. The Lipton Cup …

by Richard Crockett Like most people who follow the sport of sailing in our country, the Lipton Challenge Cup is the one competition which stands head and shoulders above all others, and which commands much interest, comment and a large and diverse following. In the above the word “challenge” is very important as the Lipton Cup is a challenge cup between Yacht Clubs. In fact it is the only national interclub sailing challenge in the country – and is not …

The Challenge will take place from Monday 16 August to Saturday 21 August in Saldanha Bay. The first race on Monday will not start before 11h00. Witbank Yacht & Aquatic Club (WYAC) are the defenders of the Cup and represented by Mike Hayton and David Rae who are co-skippers aboard ‘Nitro’. David Rae is the helmsman. The Challenger of Record is the Royal Cape Yacht Club represented by Hylton Hale who will be at the helm of ‘Vulcan’. Lipton Cup …

By Richard Crockett The best way to write about the 2019 event is to start at the prize giving! It had been said countless times in the build-up to the regatta, and while racing was taking place, that this was simply the most competitive fleet for many years with the cream of our best sailors competing. To kick off his victory speech, David Rae requested that all Lipton Cup winners stand, then World Champions, National Champions and Olympians too. There …

by Richard Crockett This period was the beginning of the end for the L26 as numbers were dropping, interest waning, and after 35 years as the designated Lipton Cup class, the L26 star allure had gone. 2017 saw the “dynamic duo” of Asenathi Jim and Roger Hudson win the Royal Cape Yacht Club their 15th Challenge. After opening with wins in the first three races, maybe complacency got to them, or possibly the rest of the fleet woke up and …

by Richard Crockett It’s very rare in the Lipton Cup challenges for a team to dominate for three years in a row, but from 2014 to 2016 this is exactly what Greg Davis and David Rae did, adding themselves to a list of just 4 other teams to have ever done this in the 66 Challenges sailed. What’s more, in 2016 they won all four races sailed, a feat only ever achieved twice before according to my records. But will …

by Richard Crockett This is a very difficult year to cover here as the winners on the day basked in the glory of having won the Lipton Cup, yet some years later Retired After Finishing due to a technicality. The real winners, the Point Yacht Club, did not have the pleasure of the celebrations on the day, both on and off the water, and had to be content with second place at the time. The Lipton Cup was presented to …

by Richard Crockett It was always clear that this year’s Lipton Challenge Cup, probably the most coveted trophy in South African sailing, was going to be a real humdinger, with competition stronger than ever. And that, it certainly was! Knysna Yacht Club’s win in Lipton in 2010, and the consequence of Greg Davis and the KYC team taking it to Mossel Bay last year where they lost the trophy to ‘Team Intasure’ from FBYC (ED. That result was ultimately incorrect …

By Richard Crockett The headline is a little misleading and was correct at the time of writing, although a few years later the results were altered after the winning boat Retired After Finishing. Let’s rather leave it at that than report on that whole sordid mess. So in fact the Knysna Yacht Club won the 2011 Lipton Challenge Cup. When the Knysna Yacht Club won the event last year and chose Mossel Bay as the waters on which to defend …

by Richard Crockett Matthew Thomas covered the event with these observations being pertinenet. “With boats and teams coming to Cape Town from all over the country and the L26 Western Cape Provincials the week before, Royal Cape was a awash with sailors, and in the five days between the events the teams made adjustments, and went out and practised manoeuvres, hoping that it would make the difference when the Lipton Cup Challenge started. Looking at the results of the L26 …