
The final round of the Triple Crown Series was held in Langebaan on Saturday 5th April.
It was good to see our newest Tiger Owner Sydney Jacobs and son Steven Sailing. Also there was Danie Snyman sailing a Tornado which proved fast in the lighter stuff.
The fleet got away in a variable ESE wind on a falling tide at 12.00 noon with a Le Mans Start from the beach. Alan Lawrence standing in the water with his spinnaker already hoisted – this gave him a demon start but only for some 300m as he had to retire having broken his tiller. The course was different this year with a loop round the island to start with. The gate at Langebaan Yacht Club was as per normal and sailing over the sandbanks was a challenge. The Weather Mark was cunningly laid in an area of absolutely no wind for 100m all around it while being in the tide. The Tigers got clean away but the 16’s and 14’s all gathered here for a chat for quite a while. Afterwards Douglas Edwards and Julian Veron both disappeared into the distance on their 16’s. With a free route around the island Klaas De Rooy proved that an ‘old sea dog’ can teach you new tricks when he pulled right up to them by going around the island on the Western side. The wind was by now filling in from the South and single and double trapezing became the order of the day. Douglas threw away a certain win in the 16’s by not going through the gate on the last round while Klaas made a wrong gybe at the end to let a very surprised WCHCA chairman and his crew Sarah Arnold through for a win in the 16’s.
An encouraging sign was the appearance of 4 x 14’s of new 14 sailors with Daniel Lawrence showing them the way around and it will not be long before Jack Belcher overtakes dad Mark. Simon Russel brought his new French Hobie 14 out to play.
Prize giving was at the Hobie Shop with Simon proving to be a very adept MC.
Results: hobie triple crown 2014 FINAL