Report by Tom Arthur

This is an annual event when the two classes make the most of slanging off at each other’s class, but I hasten to add it is all in good fun. It should be noted that the EC12 sailors are hard put to find any cause for derogatory remarks about the Canterbury J’s, whereas the CJ skippers have a wealth of genuine reasons to denigrate EC12’s.

The officials for the event were; Stan Price, Noel Vincent and Tom Arthur…..all J sailors but completely unbiased……..we think. This event is run as closely as possible to match racing rules of RRS excepting matches are not umpired.

The protagonists were;

EC12s – Rod Liddy-146, Bryan Lowson-158, Peter Crofts-150, Harry Lowson-129, Jeremy Marris-152, Darryl Pender-79, Chris Koskela-9, Bruce Edgar-143.

J’s – Tom Wilda-260, Mike Inns-310, Hugh Hobden-2, Roy Bickerstaffe-275, Jim Paterson-205, Ian Scott-247, Warren Vance-203.

Because of unequal team numbers and the fact that Rod had to leave early all his matches were not scored in the final results.

The day started off very light then built slightly and the wind shifted enough to necessitate a couple of mark relocations during the day, but remained patchy. We started racing at 10.45am and when lunchbreak arrived the scores were EC12’s at 7 and J’s at 6, this was an encouraging start for the J’s who had yet to take away the trophy.

As officials we had a great view of all the starts and we awarded the most entertaining and aggressive prestart maneuvers to the match between Bruce and Roy, neither were giving an inch.

The final results were yet again to favour the EC12’s but the score of EC12 29 to J’s 20 was the best result the J’s had ever attained excepting that this exact same result was attained several years ago.

I predict an upward trend which will see the EC12’s soundly trounced next year.