The very best of this inter-club challenge was kept until last as the top two Clubs tied on points after the 9th race, leaving the final race on the 6-mile windward-leeward course as the decider. The wind was from the NW and blowing about 10 knots.
The defending champions, Hermanus Yacht Club (HYC) were up against the challenger of record being the Royal Cape Yacht Club (RCYC). These two had slugged it out closely throughout the previous nine races, almost a mirror image of last year, and the final one had everything going for it. This made for a closely-fought highly tactical duel from the start gun as whoever was ahead at the finish line would win the coveted Lipton Cup. There were fireworks as the RCYC were OCS, as were 6 others. HYC had a cracker-jack start and looked as if she would race to glory unopposed.
Knowing they had a tough fight on their hands having started stone last, the RCYC team hunkered down and sailed a very savvy first beat to keep themselves in the game and not let HYC score a runaway victory. They whittled away at passing one boat at a time until on the penultimate downwind leg they were level-pegging with HYC.
RCYC rounded the leeward mark in first place, a whisker ahead of HYC, and the contest was far from over. They covered each other for a while and in the overcast and eerie low-light conditions were separated along the way, with HYC rounding the weather mark for the final time ahead of her rival. But the “slugfest” was not over as the two contenders, while keeping an eye on each other, sailed separate races. RCYC went left as they had on the previous downwind leg, while HYC was more centre to right. It was anyone’s game as RCYC looked a tad faster, but as they closed the finish line HYC edged her rival by a mere 8 seconds – scoring a well-deserved back-to-back overall victory.
This final race was not just about these two, as others had business to finish – one of those being the University of Cape Town (UCTYC) team which had been improving with each race and were knocking on the door to take a race win. This was their day as they edged ahead of the False Bay Yacht Club (FBYC) on the finish line to win by less than one second. FBYC had been OCS too so they had staged a remarkable recovery. But the victory in the 10th race belonged to UCTYC and their skipper Dale Rae who etched her name in Lipton Cup history to become the first woman to win a race in the 115 year history of this contest.
There were three races on this final day – all won by a different club. HYC set the tone for the day by announcing their intention to win the contest overall by winning the 8th race by 16 seconds from FBYC.
Knysna Yacht Club (KYC) won the 9th race by being ahead of RCYC by 9 seconds.
Interestingly the two most consistent boats in the final three races were the RCYC skippered by David Rae while his wife, Dale Rae, skippering the UCTYC boat, both had 11 points from three races, edging ahead of the FBYC team by 1 point.
This Lipton Cup contest has proven yet again that one-design racing is the way to go as it provided thrillingly close racing across all 10 races, and once again proved that consistency is what wins this contest. The top two boats each scored two wins, the only other team to achieve this was the Walvis Bay Yacht Club (WBYC) who ended 9th overall as they were simply not consistent enough in terms of their results.
The contest may have been considered marred by protests in race 6, but this is a contest sailed under the International Racing Rules of Sailing, which must be upheld and applied to provide fair competition. One also needs to understand all the options when being protested, as the competition rules provide a post race scoring penalty of 30%. Had one of the teams taken this penalty, they would have gone into the final day joint leaders! Protests can be very cruel if you don’t have all your wits about you.
The young Hermanus Yacht Club team were led by Calvin Gibbs who had the most remarkable positive attitude throughout the contest, even when the chips were down, and after scoring a 12th in the fourth race. His never-say-die attitude, and his mental strength to fight to the bitter end, is what won him and his team of co-skipper Markus Progli, Scarlet Celliers and Thomas Hensilwood the coveted Lipton Cup for the second consecutive year. That’s no mean feat.
