Charles Paice and his A team have done it again, this time perhaps with some help from the younger set, but a great day was enjoyed by many - young and old. Charles's dry and witty speech each year is the highlight of the prize giving followed by his delightful poem about getting old. Maybe a new verse each year?

This annual event draws a large fleet. From the humble beginnings in 1985 when 6 entries almost had the committee remove the race from the calendar, to 2010 with some 50 seniors taking to the waters of Table Bay in almost perfect conditions. And let it not be said that this race is not competitive. We had more collisions and protests than in Cape Town Sailing Week! There's still plenty fire in those old veins!

It was a great pity that the seniors were deemed to not be competent enough to fly spinnakers - evidenced by some loud booing of disapproval at the skippers briefing. Make a plan for next year please. The seniors are generally very competent and quite capable of handling their boats with or without spinnakers.

The "race" was run in the pursuit format with the slower boats leaving at 14h30. Even with very little pressure on skippers, so intense was the competitive edge that we heard several OCS calls. The breeze was perfect. About 10 to 12 knots from the south east and we all commented on how clean the sea was. No plastic bags and no kelp. What a pleasure.

The course was fairly boring and I would suggest a revamp to make it a bit more challenging. The bridge was well run by Ray, Rodney, Michela and their backup team with a smooth sequence of starts. The yacht A-L managed to not round mark #4 resulting in a DSQ result, after placing well up near the front of the fleet.

There were several collisions with the skipper of Merit finding himself in deep trouble at the #10 mark after a port tack approach to the finish line didn't work out. The scene was fairly comical as the tiny Merit got itself dragged off in some arbitary direction by its Genoa sheet being entangled with the BBQ of a passing Muira.

The race was won by Necessity skippered by John Spilhaus, followed by Me2Me in 2nd place skippered by Derek Shuttleworth, whilst 3rd place was snatched by Ukuzwana skippered by Jeff Avery.

Age group winners:

• 80 to 90: Hein Schipper 'Carousel"
• 70 to 80:
• 60 to 70: Derek Shuttleworth "Me2Me"

All in all, an enjoyable day on the water, followed by an excellent prize giving and lots of free food and beer. Well done to all involved in the organization of this event.

pictures by

1. Kirsten from Maestro,   click here for more
2. Pam from the bridge ... more pictures...
3. Prizegiving