Our waters ‘the best’
Mossel Bay hosted a highly successful Western Cape Sailing Championships at the weekend.
The champs took place from Friday until Monday.
The wind put a spoke in the wheel at times, ranging from a strong southerly on Sunday which delayed the launch of the smaller boats, to so little wind on Monday, that the faster boats could not sail.
However, the local organiser for the champs, Elfie Holden, said this did not spoil the experience for the sailors. They gave Mossel Bay a standing ovation for being “the best sailing venue in South Africa” at the prizegiving on Monday.
She said she received many compliments and messages after the champs, with people saying it was the best regatta they had attended in many years because it was so well organised.
At the opening ceremony on Friday night at the old Mossel Bay yacht club grounds, Bev le Sueur, well-known in SA Sailing: Western Cape circles, commended Elfie and Rob Holden and their son Oliver for their hard work in organising the championships.
The Finn and Mirror boat national championships took place in Mossel Bay at the same time as the national championships.
Anroux Marais
The ceremony was attended by Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Anroux Marais, who had a message for the young sailors: "Dream big, and if your dreams do not scare you; they are not big enough."
Elfie, the commodore of the Mossel Bay Sailing Club and owner of the Skipper Foundation NPO, which offers sailing coaching to children for free, pulled out all the stops.
She had 10 to 15 people helping to move the yacht trollies, used to launch the yachts, to and from the slipways.
"You can imagine what a job it was, with 130 boats in that limited space," Elfie says.
But they pulled it off. Each trolley and yacht had the same number and she had to call on the loud hailer for the trolleys to be brought to the yachts.
Several sailors remarked that they had never encountered such good service at a competition before.
Usually sailors much fetch their own
trolleys or do their own organising to have them brought to them.
The sails of the yachts were a colourful spectacle in the bay during the weekend, especially the smaller yachts which sailed in the De Bakke area, with the Silver Cloud cruise ship, visiting Mossel Bay during the weekend, in the background.
Local sailors excel
Elfie said Mossel Bay sailors did extremely well in the championships. She said: "The weather allowed the sailors all opportunities, in slow and heavy winds.
The Mossel Bay boys in the Open Slow fleet excelled, with Renier Delie coming first, Lilitha Malusi coming second and Lulonke
Lenks, third."
The prize giving was held on Monday in the Maritime Museum at the Bartolomeu Dias Museum complex. This was a hit with the competitors, who were thrilled with the appropriateness of the Dias replica caravel and maritime artifacts.
Help from a large number of people is required for an event of this nature and at the prize giving, more than 50 people were thanked for their contributions in the form of manning rescue boats and bridge boats, driving the tractor to launch boats, catering, administration and more.
For the results and previous articles on the championships, see www.mosselbayadvertiser. com.
‘The Mossel Bay boys in the Open Slow fleet excelled, with Renier Delie coming first, Lilitha Malusi second and Lulonke Lenks, third.’