The rules for the Senior's Day Race is that the skipper/helmsman must be over 60 to be eligible. On Yolo, we need look no further then our active Halyards man, Sieger Smink, so the Yolo entry, remained a truly YOLO team.
For those of you who do not know Sieger, Sieger built is own Buccaneer from a set of plans up.. in the late 70's.. and was active in the early 80's with his boat. She was named WAVE GUIDE.. After this, Sieger purchased a Brand New Ladd27 which was also named WaveGuide. Sieger campaigned both these boat actively, attracting the top skippers aboard. Dale sailed with him from time to time. The boat moved regularly between FBYC and RCYC for it's program. After which Sieger took a break from sailing, at a later stage selling the Ladd27 to Dale, who sailed her for one season. At that time Sieger was attracted back to sailing and became a regular aboard again, staying with the team and being an active part of the team specializing in the Halyard position. Besides this, he has always been part of the delivery team. A well accomplished sailor.. and very handy technically aboard.
Back to the Race:
Conditions at the club were hot and windless.... and people were concerned that there would be no racing. The Race Chairman ensured that the Club Launch was sent out early to see where the wind was and to set the course. This was done, so prior to everyone leaving they already had a course in hand.
With a Pursuit start, Yolo had a nice clear line.. and started with a few boat lengths to spare at the right side of the line. Sieger who had not been helming in a race for some time, quickly settled in and got the boat sailing well. Yolo holding her own with the increasing breeze. Yolo put some tacks into the shoreline in search of a lift... but the conditions were averaged out. Caught up to the smaller boats, around the weather mark, bear away, pole up. Yolo Opted to gybe and sail own breeze and gybed back with 20% of the leg left. Yolo had a good rounding, but by now the bigger boats were breathing down..so Yolo had to work to keep her breeze clear for the remainder of the leg.
Yolo came 11th out of 48 starters and 5th in Age category. Well done Sieger.
Aboard were: Sieger, Ian, Dale, Riaan. Boat performed well. No problems.
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