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Hellerup Sejlklub, Denmark * August 1-5, 1978 |
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 ... Poul
Elvstrom calls Copenhagen’s
Hellerup
Sejlklub his home (see photo above). Remebering the Danes
sailing
three up in ’76, we were expecting "frisk" winds. However, our lovely
week
in Danmark brought only one race of 8 metres per second (16 knots, F4)
or better – the final one! Even so, the UK contingent, having their
boats
from England to Esbjerg and driven from there to København,
looked
completely at home in these conditions as they placed 1st through 7th!
In
fact, three boats had the
series virtually
to themselves: Alan Neville had a breakdown and a DNF early in the
series
but might still have won on the strength of five great finishes if it
had
not been for the consistent excellence of the defendings champions,
Colin
and Iain Wilson, and of John Doerr (see photo below) and his
wife,
Stevie.
 ... John
and Stevie finally ended up
beating
Colin and Iain by 0.7 points, the closest margin of victory in a Worlds
to date. It was a marvellous fight all the way to the final gun. The
series
ran out on Alan and Neil who were on a roll as they placed 2-1-1 in the
final 3 races and took 3rd place from 1974 champions, Alan and Martin
Wilson.
This series marked the first Worlds appearance of Ian Porter who, along with brother, Mike, was sailing one of the new generation of wooden boats that were not only furniture-like in appearance in their lovely coats of WEST epoxy but also rigged like performance boats with all the control lines leading out to both sides of the boat. The Porters edged out their boat’s builder, Alec Stone for 6th place. Top North Americans were Al Schönborn with Russ Burrell who placed 8th after sailing a most consistent series and nosed out the Norwegian, Koch, who remains the only Wayfarer based north of the Arctic Circle ever to sail a Worlds. Christian Larsen (10th) was the top Dane while Jim and Linda Heffernan topped the US boats in 11th. A hard-luck story of WW III was Trevor Rose who had qualified for the UK but could not race after breaking his leg. Trevor showed his great spirit by attending just the same. Continuing in a medical vein, we must not forget the lovely sight of Nick Hodshon performing surgery self-taught as he removed a bunch of stitches from his knee in the HSK Dining Room as the rest of us tried to eat. The
good-luck story was that
Hellerup
SK is right next to one of the finest topless beaches in
København.
Of course you won’t want to hear how a certain newsletter editor nearly
stepped on a baby while strolling along this beach for the first
time…
The Seamanship Award for the week had to go to the two young Danes who sailed their boat backwards into a very narrow 15-metre slip between the long docks at the launch ramp. I thought this to be a bit of perhaps excessive showmanship until one of our North American colleagues followed them in on a run, bow first and at hull speed. Too late, he discovered that there was no longer any way of slowing down by luffing up. He navigated the cement ramp in fine Hobie Cat style!!! All
in all. it was a fine week
of racing
and generally having a good time: trips to the Viking museum in
Roskilde,
Hamlet’s castle in Helsingør, Tivoli and a tour of the Tuborg
brewery,
to mention just a few of the highlights.
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