Over the weekend of 9^th-11^th March four RQYS boys made their way to Royal Brighton Yacht Squadron to sail in the Victorian Optimist State Championships.  The line-up of sailors was impressive with 61 sailors fighting it out to be number 1 in Victoria.  RQYS’s David Daley, Leonardo Hughes, Mitchell Luxton and Hugo Ralph were keen to be in the mix.

The regatta started slow due to no wind and generally the wind was fairly light throughout the whole weekend, with the exception of Sunday afternoon when good old Melbourne proved why it’s known to have four seasons in one day! Conditions were tough and the penultimate day saw five general recalls before the time limit was reached, resulting in 15 sailors finding themselves black flagged for the first race of the last day.

All the boys had a wonderful weekend, saw old friends, made new ones and have come home with areas for improvement ready for the NSW Opti States next weekend.  Final results: David 27^th, Hugo 31^st, Mitchell 34^th and Leonardo 51^st.

A question that I get asked a lot as a parent is “Why do you do all this travelling?”  To answer this, as supportive as RQYS is for our children, to keep improving I believe they need to sail against different sailors, have bigger start lines to get prepared for Nationals, make new friends and to sail in different locations and conditions.

– Karyn Ralph, Sailing Academy