Tom's Triumph
It’s a bitter sweet thing to be beaten by a 70yr old semi retiree. Pre race they seem to have all the time in the world (they do- they’re retired), not overly concerned about too much and more intent on giving up every detail of their last extended holiday. Yet still, I called out across the water and congratulated Tom Dalton on winning the first race of the afternoon. It wasn’t an easy race and Tom had won it convincingly. The wind was a temperamental South Easterly and was not consistent across the course at times there were gusts across the course which lifted the boats along, then the breeze would drop and crews were left to search for more wind lines on the water.
Tom raised his hand to acknowledge my comment then replied along the lines that something will beat class every time. Considering that Tom had led the fleet from the start and it had been a long race, I assumed that Tommy had a fair amount of class to compliment that arse.
As we move towards the end of the season, many of the clubs crews have had outstanding recent performances. Ross Kneebone and Ray Muld on their Hobie 16 returned form the Darren Lowder memorial regatta winning the Hobie 16 fleet, which included defeating World top 20 finalist Nick King. Garry Tuck was the outstanding performer at the Trail Bay regatta, leading the Spinnaker division throughout the weekend and Tim Haffner gave the Manning club boats a 20 minute head start and ran down all the fleet to finish first in the Final Manning race.
These results are a great indicator of the quality of sailing that is being maintained in the Forster club. Tom’s result on the weekend show that there are some pretty fast boats out there and some equally good sailors.
