Bertrand and his Olympians clearing out

9:25 PM Wed 14 Jan 2009 GMT

'John Bertrand, Ben Ainslie and Andrew-Palfrey dockside - Commonwealth Bank 2009 Etchells Australian Championship' Steve Hall Click Here to view large photo

Even though today's heat 5 of the 2009 Australian Etchells Nationals was won comfortably by Alastair Gair on Valsheda, the day belonged to John Bertrand & his crew of Olympians on Triad.

Bertrand finished a consistent third, behind Ian Johnson on Bananas in Pyjamas with Mark Bradford fourth, South Australian Chris Pratt fifth and the Bandwagon team in sixth after pulling of a perfect pin end start and being in the top five boats at the first up wind mark.

This now puts Bertrand well clear of Mark Bulka (Critical Balance) on the standings with his worst result a seventh in the five races sailed so far

Bulka didn't have such a good day finishing in 11th place to be six points adrift of Bertrand (before dropping his worst score).

The conditions today were strong SW breezes with gusts to 25 knots.

The downwind legs were fast surfing conditions with great sleigh rides down the two metre waves and plenty of bone jarring bumps on the upwind legs making us very thankful for the SLAM smock tops in the drenching conditions.

Skip Lissiman’s Bandwagon - Commonwealth Bank 2009 Etchells Championships - William Foster-Hall

Soon after rounding the bottom mark the second and last time, we launched Bandwagon off a particularly ugly 2.5 meter wave thrown up by the fresh winds and boats coming downwind at full speed.

The wave came straight back over the deck half a meter deep washing the whole four man team back down the deck and dumping at least 400 litres of water in the boat, which took the best part of the 3.6km upwind leg to pump the water out.

Sitting on the side of the Etchells in these extreme upwind conditions is not that much different to riding a mechanical bull with a fire hose aimed at you - staying on the boat is the challenge!

With the crew weigh in this morning only one race was scheduled for the day.

Given the conditions today there were many relieved crews once back ashore - thankful as second race was not planned.

Their relief is short lived as it looks like much the same conditions (20+ knots) for the remainder of the races with two races tomorrow (Thursday) and the final race on Friday.

We are looking forward to strong breezes over the next few days as they are both are a lot of fun and we go well in the conditions..

How did we go with the crew weigh in?

Andy Fethers said he hasn't been this light since he was 19 years old.

I haven't been this light since I was 19 years old - (For me that is a lot more years than Andy.)

We over did the weight loss program as we ended up 4.5 kgs under the maximum crew weight limit of 285kgs.

Not a good day to be light on the scales with the wind blowing dogs off chains..

I might add we did a good job over breakfast getting the weight stacked back on - and I am starting to think straight again after drinking the best part of 5 litres of water and poweraid today. The by product is I can even remember the password to my computer without concentrating on it..

More tomorrow..

The team of BANDWAGON would like to thank our sponsors SLAM sports wear, Club Marine boat insurance, Ronstan for their support.

by Skip Lissiman

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