tag 60 – designed to enjoy the ride - SAILPOWER SA

SAMSA (South African Maritime Safety Authority)
has announced its sponsorship of the 2012 biggest
South African sailing event in sheer numbers. The
‘SAMSA Round the Island Race 2012’ will be the
54th anniversary of the regatta.
Tebogo Modibo, SAMSA’s Head of Marketing and
Communications explained, ‘SAMSA’s responsibility
is ensuring safety on all of the county’s waters, both
inland and offshore. Our active participation in this
event offers us a great interaction opportunity to
educate sailors and visitors alike on aspects of water
safety and encourage compliance around proper
usage. We also hope to encourage water sports as a
healthy lifestyle activity and tourism to these areas in
those pursuits.’
Host of the annual event, Lake Deneys Yacht Club
(LDYC), are also delighted to announce that Guinness
World Records has approved the club’s application
to officially challenge their record awarded as “The
most yachts to finish an inland yacht race was 389 at
the Sanlam Round the Island Race at Lake Deneys
Yacht Club, Deneysville, Free State, South Africa on
4 February 2007.”
The Race Restructured
LDYC has also taken a long, hard look at the profile
of regular participants. They have identified that
although Keelboats and Micro-multihull participation
quotas have been fairly steady, the numbers of
dinghies and cats has been steadily diminishing over
the years. LDYC’s Commodore Tielman Burger
elaborated, ‘To encourage them to come along, the
race has been restructured into 3 starts instead of 5.
The first will be the Ultra Class, a maximum of 50
boats with a handicap of 1.00 and higher racing the
faster boats of other classes, followed by keelers and
micro-multihulls in the second start. The third start
will be for all cats and dinghies. All these boats will
sail in very similar wind conditions in 20 minutes
instead of 40 minutes apart. This will smooth the
waters so to speak and make it easier for these
competitors to go up against each other.’
Another change is the addition of 4 more trophies for
which the entire fleet will be split into 4 new handicap
categories in which boats of the same or similar
speeds compete. This adds another enticing facet to
the competition.
The weekend will again feature a big screen on which
live footage of the start and finish will be watched by
the onshore crowd. The usual bar, catering and topnotch
entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights
and great prizes in a draw at a price of R50 a head
over 16 years of age for the entire weekend is
unbeatable value for money. Prizegiving has also been
moved a week later than usual to Friday 17th, and
promises to roll out in a refreshingly entertaining new
format designed to speed up the proceedings and
make the evening thoroughly enjoyable.
To download entry forms visit www.ldyc.co.za or www. samsa.org.za.
LDYC 016 371-1393