Great result for local sailing duo
The sailors recently moved from Cape Town to Oslo Beach.
THE Oslo Beach husband and wife team of Michael and Heidi Kavanagh finished 15th overall and were the seventh Flying Fifteen to cross the line in the Point Yacht Club’s Jonsson Cup Pursuit Race last weekend.
Racing on the classic wooden deck Flying Fifteen named ‘Femme Fatale’, the sailors, who recently moved up from Cape Town, traded in their bigger keelboat monohull ‘Ray of Light’ for the smaller two person keelboat dinghy.
A zig-zag course in the bay had a fleet of 53 dinghies travelling to all corners of the harbour on Saturday with Jon Marshall from Westville claiming the honours.
The race that got underway just beyond the Durban Marina saw the large mixed fleet head off in light conditions towards the harbour mouth.
“It was a bit of an obstacle course dodging the busy afternoon shipping movements. On our first beat up we encountered our first challenge, a massive container ship arriving with a bevy of tugs around her. We had a few more large vessels we had to quickly get out the way of,” Marshall said.
The first junior to cross the line was Alex Thorpe, helming a classic little Gypsey with his dad, Ralph. Alex was awarded the mini Jonsson Cup. The easy to sail Gypsey is a South African designed two person boat ideal for learning to sail in. The Thorpes finished 21st overall.
Results
1 Jon Marshal (Laser), 2 Paul Changion / Tim Duguid (FF15), 3 Gregg Dobson (Laser), 4 Martin Zimmerman / Carl Zimmerman (FF15), 5 Rudy McNeill (Laser), 6 Andrew Walford (Laser), 7 Campbell Alexander / Chris Clark (FF15), 8 Anthony MacMillan (Laser), 9 Patrick Harris / Jeremy Kriek (FF15), 10 Gregg Hurter / Nic Albert (FF15)
