Ballito brothers take the win at Easter regatta

Enthusiastic sailors from around SA were greeted with a pumping westerly that challenged the sailors over the gnarly, four-day Easter Regatta offshore Durban, with Ballito brothers coming out tops.

Four classes lined up to compete: The 505 and Dart one up Nationals, the Hobie 14 Provincials and an Open Class. Local sailors representing Point Yacht Club claimed victory in three of the four classes.

World class sailors, Peter and his brother from Ballito, Thomas Funke (PYC) won the 505s, Ben Meine the Darts, Peter Hall (PYC) the Hobie 14 and Siyanda Vato and Nhlanhla Phakathi the Open Class.

Race Officer for the regatta, Jimmy Melville had a testing time on the bridge boat as he sat watching the wind speeds that registered near 20knots on most days, too dangerous for the small dinghy boats.

“A lot of the guys have said that the conditions were testing, and they were! A number of them went swimming, lots of capsizing and there were all kinds of upside down dinghies. It was just one of those heavy wind regattas where we spent a lot of time rescuing the yachtsmen in adverse conditions.

“As expected, the Funke brothers sailed a consistent regatta and won most races by a country mile,” said Melville.

Humble as always, Thomas Funke said they had tight racing all round with testing conditions and while he said the Cape Town guys loved the strong winds, the Gauteng lads found it quite tough.
“It was absolutely good fun. I think there was competition everywhere in the fleet and for a lot of the guys it was down to the wire with not much in it!

“Our campaign started early this year and we spent a lot of time on boat preparation. Peter and I made a huge effort to meet at least once a month to get on the water. We changed some of the rigging, got a new mast and a new set of sails.

“It worked well for us! The last day, seeing the predicted heavy conditions we changed to our old sails which made us a bit slower but we managed to tweak some of our settings and it was all good.”

Ranked in the top ten 505s, the Funke brothers will be concentrating their efforts here this year.

“Roundabout now, we would be packing up the boat and shipping it off to the Worlds. This year, we are not going to the States for the Worlds but have opted to stay here and build the local fleet. There is so much potential here, it looks really promising. Then maybe next year we will head to Europe to race there and then Australia in 2019.”

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