Sail Fremantle 2012 sailed on the 27/ 28th October

Report & Photo: Chris Sutherland & Mark Whittington

Sail Fremantle 2012 sailed on the 27/ 28th October was the first fleet regatta for the Western Australian Musto fleet ever. This newest of the Musto fleets included Arthur Brett, x world champion in Contenders and Windsurfer who was back from the Olympics, 49er & 14ft Skiff and America’s Cup sailor Denis Jones, Laser gun Mark Whittington and Chris Sutherland and Paul Green, the current Laser radial world champion Tristan Brown has just bought a Musto but could not sail.

The WA fleet has 6 boats and hopes to grow a few more with uni exams finishing, plus Brit James Lewis bringing his boat with him. Fremantle’s reliable & feared sea breeze took the weekend off, the regatta was sailed in the dying easterly land breeze or a sick sea breeze that got to 10 knots.

Mark Whittington dominated the regatta winning 3 races of the 9 races, and Arthur Brett came 2nd. By winning Mark got to write the article below and his photo on the article

Below by Mark Whittington

Sail Fremantle kicked off with a healthy 20 knot easterly in the boat park, By the time the musto fleet figured which way the boat should face to pull the main up and got out the heads it was down to 10 knots. By the time we all reached to the start boat we were down to 5 knots.

Not the first time in Perth that the easterly has died on a 35 degree day with no clouds.

Anyway with all this excitement we started race one, 3 laps, each lap taking what felt like an hour, As the front runners approached the bottom mark one someone yelled out "wanna go to the finish"

The others thought this was a grand idea and replayed "sounds good" This conversation had taken place after a kite was dropped for the bottom mark rounding. Some cheeky guy in pink took advantage of this and keep his kite up and went straight for the race win. Mark Whittington was first, Paul Green was 2nd.

Following the long race we decided to have a one lapper. Skiff legend Denis Jones sailed away in this race for the win.

After a while waiting we had a soft sea breeze. Arthur Brett (AB) had a killer start rolling that
same cheating guy in pink from the first race to push him out to a big lift on the right, sailing away for the race.

The final race for the first day saw Paul and Sutho (Chris Sutherland) start correctly and AB just got Sutho for the heat win

Sunday again started with a nice easterly only to completely die before the first race.

After 30-40 minutes of waiting we were away in 5-10 knots form the south west.
Despite being over on the start Sutho restarted came through the fleet to take the heat win by a nice margin.

In race 2 as the wind built Mark used his swift boat handling to capitalise on Paul, despite Paul being the faster boat uphill.

Race 3 no one remembers what happened.

The last two races we held in a left shifting sick dying sea breeze. These final races saw AB and Mark take a race each in some good little battles, especially in last race, AB sutho and Mark stayed in close quarters to each other.

The other WA Musto sailor Thor Schoenhoff could not be there for the regatta having booked a week in Phuket with his girlfriend, sent his report from Thailand via Facebook

"went snorkeling at the location of 'The Beach' yesterday. nice and quiet and very peaceful along with the other 20,000 people that were there."

On a final note it was the very first time the fleet has gone sailing for a day and not have a capsize, and this was on 7 hour day!

The fleet is moving back to Mounts Bay Sailing club in Preparation for the National Championship in January,