A small, but select international fleet contested the 2022 National Melges 24 National Championships as part of last week’s Festival of Sails at Royal Geelong Yacht Club. While the boat numbers were down, affected by Covid, the quality of sailing wasn’t impacted.
BYS was represented by Cobra 24 skippered by Andrew Colliver with the crew of Blair Coventry, Paul Devereux and Adrian Mulcahy.
It was a hot regatta both on and off the water, but thankfully there was a sea breeze each day with the wind ranging between 8 and 15 knots over the eight races.
The fleet included a number of highly experienced globetrotting sailors in the class, with the overall winner, Accru, skippered by Kevin Nixon (top 20 sailor and top 6 amateur in the world in the class) from RPAYC in Sydney.
Unlike the other competitors who regularly sail against other boats in the class, Cobra 24 had to quickly get up to speed (especially being 25 kilos underweight compared with all other boats, typically a significant disadvantage in the class). After a much-improved second day (with three thirds), Cobra 24 scored a meritorious heat win in race six on day three. A back-to-back win in heat 7 was on the cards, but an unfortunate mark rounding at the last mark was costly in the leeward run to the finish.
With more than half the races seeing four boats crossing the line within 1 minute (and some within 30 seconds!), any errors were costly for the fleet.
To finish third overall in the regatta, Cobra 24 had to make up two points in the last race, but alas despite finishing third in this race, ahead of their rival, the crew missed out by one point.
It was a great regatta with lots of learning, and having an all Czech Republic crew competing certainly provided a lot of colour and entertainment!
Our thanks also to RGYC for a very professional and well-run regatta, making all competitors feel at home.
With the promising start in this campaign being able to beat every other boat at least twice has the crew committed to this exciting class of sports boat in the next Nationals Championships, to be held in Sydney. Stay tuned!
