Sailing Magazine
Peter Morgenrood & Dennis Lapham; Terry Clarence & Derek Warne; Doug Alison & Anton Ellens;
Dave Hudson & Terry Reynolds; Topher Hancock & Ralph Thomas; Rick Nankin & Charles Bongers; Rob de Vlieg – alone at the back; JJ Provoyeur & Terence Twentyman-Jones; Jurgen Coblenz & Tony Kitchen; Chris Kitchen & Dave Kitchen; Les Nathanson & Dudley Kelbe;
SA team of 7 selected as follows: Hudson, Nathanson, Provoyeur, de Vlieg, Hancock, Nankin & Morgenrood. 2 teams qualified at international week – Clarence, Coblenz.
3 allowed in as extras – Alison, Jackson, Kitchen.
By Richard Crockett
Due to the immense interest in the 1980 Fireball Worlds off Durban when many of yesterdays’s sailing heroes competed, here is the finale with report on the winners, the final race, a complete set of results plus a photo of the South African team.
The final race was staged in conditions far from ideal. Before the final race the competition was still wide open, with David Bain of the U.K. holding the overall leading position, although any one of about four crews were still able to take the title.
Thirty seconds before the start of the race a major wind switch caught many skippers unawares and several had to gybe round to cross the start line. Most of the fleet took the inshore tack, but it proved to be more advantageous to tack out to sea. Kim Slater seemed to get it all right at the time as he sailed off into the distance with a 13 minutes lead, although JJ Provoyeur managed to whittle that down to a few seconds by the second weather mark.
It was tense stuff indeed, with Kim Slater and Richard Parslow winning the final race and the world title.
READ MORE HERE: 1980 05 26 – 1980 Fireball Worlds – 000824 – OCR – Redacted
OVERALL RESULTS: 1980 Fireball Worlds – Results race by race – 000790 – OCR
