What was not apparent, though, was that the Australian contingent would fare so well, to the point where Norman Rydge/Richard Scarr would surprise themselves and others to take second place overall. Only three points behind the winners, they also won the Australian F.D. Championship just prior to the main event.

Continuing the Aussie effort, Brett Beyer/Roddy Johnson, the current NSW champions, finished fourth overall – just three places behind the No. 1 World ranked German Hans-Peter Schwarz and his some-time crew of Dutchman Peter van Koppen.

Perhaps the four Australian’s backgrounds in the Laser class held them in good stead – all were good Laser sailors, Beyer in particular.

The highly fancied Italian duo of Roberto Cipriani/Stefano Morelli filled fifth place. That fifth did not reflect their talent. Had their boat arrived in Australia on time and been released from customs quickly, their result may have been different. Along with other Italian and Spanish competitors, who were in the same boat, so to speak, all would have had time to acclimatise themselves to Melbourne conditions. This not being the case, it put them behind the eight-ball from day one.

Former three-time World champions and the fancied Aussie bet, Ian McCrossin/James Cook had an up-and-down regatta to finish sixth overall. The surprise package of the series though, came in the form of ‘Sandringham locals’, Victorian’s Gavin Dagley/John Dryden.

Only having sailed in the class for the past eight months, they stole the show. Had it not been for a torn spinnaker toward the end of Race 1, while leading the race and a disqualification for an OCS in Race 2, where their placing was a third, a fifth overall was within reach.

They were philosophical, ‘we were only hoping for a top fifteen, so this is a bonus, quite unbelievable,’ Dryden said.

Szabolcs arrived early enough in Melbourne, as did Schwarz, to take part in the Open section of the Australian titles, finishing on equal eight points, well in front of the next best placed Rydge, making both foregone conclusions for a top finish at the Worlds. The Aussies had other ideas.

The Hungarians did make it look easy though, their worst place a sixth, prior to a disqualification from Race 6. They sailed well in all conditions, as did the Germans. Rydge won the final two races, to overcome Schwarz by three points, the latter’s downfall an eight and fourth place in the final two races.

‘We really enjoyed to sail here in Melbourne, we like the weather and the waves, we did enjoy ourselves here, but it would have been good to have some more days with more wind,’ Szabolcs commented.

What will never be known though, is what might have been had the championship reached its natural conclusion. Due to poor weather, competitors finished a day early – the Aussies, all of them, itching for another race, only a couple of points keeping them from better results.

‘We very much wanted that last race, we were getting better with each race and now we will never know….,’ Beyer said.

Hosted by the experienced team at Sandringham Yacht Club, the F.D.’s sailed a mixed weather regatta, some days too light and two others too heavy - in excess of 35 knots constant, it was not an easy five days for anyone, including the Principal Race Officer, Ross Wilson.

‘What else could he do, he did the right thing,’ was the comment from many as the waited ashore just about everyday, sometimes until 2.00pm, while race officials waited for fair sailing conditions.

However, they managed to finish six races with one drop and Szabolcs, along with other internationals and the Australians themselves, were amazed at the Australian performances.

In a country that does not have a big fleet of the former Olympic class F.D., it is, as both Rydge and Beyer pointed out, difficult to gauge how good or bad you are.

‘The big fleets are in Europe, that’s where we have been going the past year, to get some competition with the good sailors. We love this class, they are such a good boat to sail,’ Rydge, a 45 year old from Darling Point in Sydney commented.

McCrossin agrees: ‘They are technically quite difficult to sail, more so than a lot of other boats, but a bit forgiving on the body, say, compared to an 18 foot skiff. Good for us older heavier blokes.’

Expressing his thoughts on the World series as a whole, Rydge had this to say: ‘This regatta was very difficult in terms of tricky weather and wind shifts. One of the best teams here was Cipriani and Morelli. They were unfortunate that their boat arrived here late, but to my mind they are the best all-rounders here.

The main feature of this regatta was the strong performances of the Aussies. Richard and I went into Race 6 thinking ‘this could be our last race’, so we went for it, rather than keep an eye on our closest competitors and cover. We just couldn’t cover all of them. It worked, we won it.

Realistically, we hoped we’d finish in a top five position. We started our preparation in the middle of the year at Kiel Week, where we finished second. We then went to the European Championships on Lake Como and finished sixth and that gave us a good indication of how the European sailors would go in Melbourne – we knew we had a lot of work to do.

We know where our weaknesses are – we don’t sail in light air well, because we don’t get those conditions at home too often (although the pair had two wins in such conditions). We also need to improve on tight reaches.

At home we (himself, the Beyer and McCrossin crews), get together only once a month at Sydney Flying Squadron, along with five or six others, it’s especially difficult for Freddy (McCrossin), because he has to drive up from the South Coast, Rydge said.

A stalwart of the class for ten years, he and Scarr will go back to Europe this year to try and improve. Scarr lives in England for their summer anyhow, running his business, Dinghy Solutions, so it is not difficult for them to hook up. Their partnership came about from their Laser days, a phone call from Rydge sealing Scarr’s fate in the F.D.

‘I have hopes that our (Australian crews) performances here might encourage other Australians into the class. It really is the best boat and exciting boat to sail and the Aussie results show how strong we actually are in the class. Freddy and James (McCrossin and Cook) are the benchmark,’ Rydge added.

Andras Domokos agrees. ‘When we came here to Melbourne, we said ‘you always have to remember McCrossin and Cook, they might be older now (McCrossin is 55 and Cook 53), but they can still win big regattas sometimes, they are very very good sailors.’

Sail Melbourne management is grateful to the following sponsors:

Victorian Government - Parks Victoria - Collex - Ronstan International - Yanmar - Yachting Victoria - P&O Nedlloyd - Schenker Australia – Menere’s BMW – Yachting Australia – Bayside City Council

Source: Sail Melbourne - Di Pearson