News

Go Murray!

Congratulations to Murray Shaw on taking out the 2008 Victorian States Titles at his home club of Indented Head. You can download the full results here.

Toby Whittle Does it again

Toby Whittle has won a fourth Australian Title. Toby won from Toby Leppin in second and Dougal Watt in third. Check out out the Sail Melbourne website for results and the Gippsland Lakes Yacht Club website for further coverage.

http://www.sailmelbourne.com.au/race-results/2008/impulse/series.htm

http://www.sailglyc.com/majorevents.htm#Impulse%20Nationals

Browny wins Champion of Champions Race

The inaugural CoC event was held at SLMASC on Lake Macquarie, NSW on 14th October. What began as a cheeky marketing stunt for the Impulse class turned out to be a huge success, leaving the organisers pondering how to capitalise on this next year. A fleet of 11 Impulses, many containing either past or present title holders from 4 different classes sailed an enthralling race in front of a packed gallery at Sunshine. Live commentary was posted on the web, and the event grabbed the attention of other local classes.

What was a close and enthralling battle with many, frequent lead changes ultimately ended with Michael Brown, current QLD Impulse champion and former Australian Impulse title holder, as the winner. The race started in a 6 knot NE with Toby, Goldie, Browny and Bondy all fighting for the lead. Bondy clawed his way to the front with blistering upwind speed. As the wind freshened to 15 knots Browny and current Australian Impulse champ, Toby Whittle came to the fore. Browny showed excellent tactical nous in what was at times a very fluky breeze. After the race Browny said that the race had been won on the square run. By all accounts everyone involved thoroughly enjoyed the race except for World Junior OK Champion, David O’Donnell who had been given the wrong centreboard for his borrowed Impulse. Despite a valiant effort to make the start line, competing proved futile with less than half the C/B being able to be used. Sorry Dave! I promise we’ll do better next time.

Special thanks to Bob Foster for providing photos and commentary from his veranda.

Check out the Photos.

Impulse Class Chosen For "Champion of Champions" Race

This Sunday, South Lake Macquarie Sailing Club will host it's inaugural invitational event. A flock of title holding Champions have been invited to race in Impulses in this one-race event to see who is the best of the best. The Impulse class will be represented by National Champion, Toby Whittle; NSW Champion, Glenn Bond; and QLD Champion, Michael Brown. Also among the invitees are several champions of the 125 class as well as the World Junior OK Dinghy Champion.

Good luck to our boys!

For more details check: www.sailinganarchy.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=61737

Kevin Kay wins 2007 Victorian State Titles

Congratulations to Kevin Kay on winning the 2007 Victorian State Titles. Coming down to the last race, with Kevin and Paul Farrell on equal points, Kevin got the better start and proved impossible to beat. Toby Leppin came in third.

Photos with more to come: Photos 1 Photos 2

Final results available here.

Thanks to our sponsors Gill [the Webmaster has an awesome pair of sailing gloves from Gill] , Tim Wilson Yacht Design and Power Drive Marine.

Web Report - Australian Impulse Championships
Manly, QLD 28/12/06 - 4/1/07

Yep, Toby did it again! By winning 9 out of the 17 heats sailed he gave the most dominant display of superior sailing skill ever seen at an Impulse nation titles. In a sporting gesture Toby sat out the last day’s racing to give the other guys a chance to decide the minor placings without his interference.

Toby’s dominance aside the other talking point was the success of the Impulse class’ move into QLD. In sounding their arrival as a genuine class stronghold the Oxley team did themselves proud organising the regatta which to the outsider appeared to run like clockwork with all angles covered. The format for the regatta also broke new ground for the class. Never before have we sailed so many races (18 including the invitation no less!). From a competitors point of view it was a matter of “the more racing the better!” After all this is what we came away for! With the weather being as kind as it was, with all races sailed between 5 and 15 knots, all 3 races each day were completed back-to-back with a minimum of wasted time. Congratulations to the QLD organisers and a special thanks to the club- RQYS who were very professional in everything they did. Regatta sponsors ASA Pharmaceuticals, GTS engineering, Barracouta sails and Ronstan are all to be thanked for being such strong supporters of Impulse sailing. Their assistance was appreciated in adding some of the special touches to the regatta.

In the lighter races it was Toby and Kevin Kay who largely dominated. Kevin eventually won a couple of heats, breaking Toby’s amazing run of 7 straight heat wins. Others to cameo out front in the lighter races were Alan Young, Mike Howell, Paul Farrell and Toby Leppin.

When the wind firmed a bit to 12+ knots and the big boys started to get some power to the road Browny, Glenn Bond and Paul & Andrew Foster started to appear at the pointy end.

Jamie Kennett, Will Gray and Nick Aldridge competed in the junior division. Nick took out the junior title in a borrowed boat. Nick and his dad, Guy were impressed by Browny’s displays on their local harbour racing against lasers. According to Browny Nick became harder to remove from his boat each time he got in it for a spin. With that, QLD may well now have a second fleet in Gladstone.

In an excellent display of sportsmanship Damien West graciously accepted second place after several cruel events beyond his control curtailed his chances of taking out the event.

The regatta played host to 75 boats, up from 45 entries in '05, with the strong showing of 5 Impulses from NSW & QLD gaining mention at the welcome/ briefing. The event was a useful platform for class promotion with the close racing between the boys providing entertainment for spectators on the bank. It was not unusual to see the at least 4 Impulses gunwale to gunwale running down the river to the finish. With the exception of the race 1 marathon 1st to 4th were only 40 seconds apart during the hour plus races.

Although there was very little separating each Impulse in boat speed and almost everyone had a turn at the lead in every race, Cosmonaut was the boat challenging for the win in each race. In race 1 after battling for the early lead with Bondy, Damien finished a strong second to Paul. He had race 2 sewn up holding a clear lead of two boat lengths rounding the final leeward mark. With only an 80m starboard tack blast to the finish he was pushed wide at the rounding by an errant Flying 11 which had called for room. The slow spinnaker drop of the 11 enabled Paul to sneak through to windward and steal the win. Race 3 was even more diabolical. Approaching the same final leeward mark Damien led from Bondy, Geoff Smith and a laser in the mix. After they all rounded to starboard as per the last race a committee vessel hailed loudly that they had rounded incorrectly and were supposed to round to port, sailing a loop around the buoy before bolting to the finish. The hail was made as Paul was two lengths from rounding which he duly did as instructed as the others scrambled to re-round. This left Paul to sheepishly collect the award for first Impulse and first on yardstick in division 3.

It is hoped that the success of this event will prompt further collaboration between the NSW and QLD associations in the future.