News

The DF Classes are some of the fastest growing sailboats in the world.  With rumors of over 50,000 boats having floated onto waters around the world over the last 5 years, it’s no surprise that good fleets have made their way to Victoria.  There are a number of DF65s regularly sailing at clubs around the State. While many of these clubs are ARYA affiliated, others sit within dinghy and keelboat clubs, or informal social groups. 

The Vic State Championships proved very successful and was a great opportunity to bring sailors together and build ARYA membership and awareness.  This year’s championships attracted interstate visitors from as far away as QLD and NSW, and this added to the close racing. We also lived up to our classes’ Founders’ Statements by including a social function after racing to catch up with old and new friends.

The event was hosted by Patterson Lakes Radio Model YC in association with the Australian DF Radio Sailing Association.  The passionate Patterson Lakes members put on a fantastic and well run event with catering, quality race management thanks to Mario Gulic, who claimed the fantastic weather was arranged on his request too!

The weekend started off with measurement and registration.  As a strict one-design production class, measurement was straightforward and only added a few minutes to the morning’s registration process.  The focus for this regatta was on battery weight and sail number position. Three underweight batteries were picked up (the blue Zippy 700mah) and these were rectified on-the-spot with tape and a 10 cent coin.  A small fee was charged for this correction service - 10c to be exact :-) Two boats had minor problems with their A+ rig sail numbers. A “zero point DP” was added to their score in note… in otherwise a polite reminder to have their number fixed for future regattas!

Racing kicked off at 10:00am with a nice 5 knot breeze that steadily built during the morning and stayed in for the whole day.  Racing was back to back and very close all the way through the fleet. For those sailors use to subdued or occasional club sailing, the schedule was rather intense.  A BBQ lunch gave us all the chance for a break and an opportunity to chat with many of the new sailors. With a number of dinghy and keelboat sailors joining the fleet for the first time, discussions often debated the differences between real sailing and “real sailing” :-)

At the end of the day the standings were:

1st Chris Dance - PLMYC VIC
2nd Gary Todd - PLMYC VIC
3rd Graham Cowling - PLYC QLD

Divisions:

Mr/Ms Average (mid fleet position): John Daly - Vic
First interstate sailor (not to place): Paul Martin - NSW
1st year rookie: Alistar Cox - Vic
Out-of-the-box division (A rig only and standard batteries): Matt Shepard - Vic

The awards we hope will remain a standing feature of all future Vic State Championships, and were carefully selected to spread trophies and recognition across the fleet and into new sailors.  Prizes of winches, rig kits, and servos supplied by our Classes’ local distributor, Hobby Warehouse, ensured the awards were hotly contested. 

The weekend was a fantastic way to round out the 2019 sailing season.  Next year the Victorian DF sailing calendar will introduce a Traveller’s Series and a new date for the DF65 States.  The 2020 DF65 Vic States will be moved to May in an attempt to attract more full-size boat sailors on the back of the Summer sailing season.  We’ll also be promoting the event via posters in many of the Bay clubs in the lead-up and hope to draw new sailors into radio sailing. We look forward to seeing you all at next year’s event!