A dramatic finish to NSW 16ft Skiff Championship
by Adam Lucius 2 Dec 05:24 UTC
30 November - 1 December 2024
Has there ever been a more dramatic finish to a NSW 16ft Skiff Championship in its 118-year history?
It's hard to recall a more eventful weekend after an overnight protest, a storm and an abandoned race necessitated a two-hour wait to establish just who had come out on top at Manly. After what seemed an eternity, Manly's Red Pumps (Tyler Dransfield) was eventually declared the winner with clubmates Modern Concept Constructions (Kurt Hansen) second and Moonen Yachts (Daniel Turner) third.
"We had no idea who'd won. There was a lot of speculation but I didn't crunch any numbers," a relieved and delighted Dransfield said as he celebrated with crewmates Greg Windust and Jay Harris back at Manly Skiff Club. "It was pretty stressful. Everyone was saying we'd won but I didn't want to jinx it and celebrate too early. "I actually thought Moonen (Daniel Turner) had it because they beat us in most races but it wasn't until I was standing here having a beer and Kurt Hansen from MCC came up and said 'you've won it'. "It was a pretty surreal feeling."
The long wait to finalise placings was understandable given there was a lot to unpack from a series that threw up myriad challenges. First, we lost two heats on Port Hunter last month after heavy shipping traffic ahead of an environmental protest forced race officials to cancel competition on day two.
That left us with four heats to get through in two days at Manly, but the weather gods had other ideas. After Imagine Signage (Nathan Wilmot) and Bosker Build (Sarah Lee) went one and two in heat four on Sunday, heat five in the series had to be abandoned when a brief but menacing southerly change tore through the course.
Cue more headaches for the race committee after it had already overseen an overnight protest, which pitted leading contenders Imagine Signage and Bosker Build against each other following a dispute from the previous day's racing. After a two-hour hearing, both boats were handed disqualifications and disappeared from title contention. There were also no "dropped" results to factor in because there was no fifth race, meaning boats could not discard their worst placing and had to rely on tallies from the four completed races. It was little wonder it took so long to reach an outcome.
Red Pumps started with a sixth at Port Hunter and rounded things off with a second, 11th and third at Manly.
It's Dransfield's second state title in two years. He said: "I woke up (Sunday morning) and knew we were still in with a chance. "Dad (John) gives me a lot of confidence and he just psyched me up and said he had hope in us and I had a lot of faith too. "We were really happy with it with our speed this weekend and everything was working really well. "Jay and Greg's experience in these big races is invaluable. They're both awesome sailors and really help to make my job easy." St George entrant TTR Civil (Phil Bower) took out the handicap division, with Manly's Fire Stopping (Alex Hart) second and IGT (Arthur Bell) from Belmont third.
Full results available here.