Sailing Magazine
by Richard Crockett
I chose this event randomly and am delighted that I did as it has some startling facts about sailing back in the day.
The 1988 Junior Nationals (now referred to as “Youth Nationals”) were at Midmar and attracted 167 entries across the Laser, Dabchick and Optimists fleets. Plus three international sailors – one from England and two from Italy competed.
I don’t believe that today we get anywhere near those numbers despite the event appearing more like an “anything that floats with kids” kind of regatta. Sad!
Clynton Wade-Lehman, despite breaking his rudder pintles in one race won the Dabchicks pretty convincingly from Jeremy Williams, with Malcolm Hall third.
To back up my earlier view about numbers, the SA Yachting Mag report revealed some amazing facts from the Henley Midmar Yacht Club during their busy December 1988 regatta period. HMYC ran 167 races in which ten different classes participated. There were 312 entries and 406 participants, excluding club sailors who sailed in regular club races.
Wow, that has to be something of a record. And again sadly, I just don’t think that numbers like those will ever be repeated again.
Apologies for the break last week. I was hoping to be offline for two, possibly three days max, but as one supplier delivered material two days later than promised it all snowballed out of control from there.
As the Dabchick thread has now become disjointed, it’s time to cut it and move on to other news. However should any follower request I dig in the archives for a specific Dabchick event, or any event for that matter, I will do my best to oblige. Just mail me: editor@sailing.co.za
READ THE SAILING MAG REPORT HERE: Pages from 1989 02 – SAILING Magazine – OCR
READ THE SA YACHTING MAG REPORT HERE: Pages from 1989 02 – SA Yachting – OCR
