Henry Paine clinches President's Trophy

GEORGE NEWS - The final set of races at George Lakes Yacht Club for the President's Trophy took place on Sunday. There were nine boats in the senior fleet: four Lasers, a Dart 18, two Hobie 14s, a Fireball and a Sprog. The youth fleet had four Optimists.

Also sailing - but not racing - were Jan Groenewald with family and friends on his Dart 18 and Herb and Suz Phillips on his GP14. Hans Delport took line honours in races one and two on his Dart 18, with the Fireball of David Laing and Matthew de Villiers close behind. The wind was a bit patchy in race three and here the Dart was only third across the line.

In race one Henry Paine established a good lead ahead of the other Lasers with Maurits Lammers next up for most of the race. However, on the final lap, Paine missed a mark to be recorded DNF. Lammers followed Paine until the mistake was realised. This allowed Malcolm Osborne to take the lead from Lammers and the Sprog of Tom and Lisl Barry.

In race two the lead in the Lasers changed several times between Paine and Osborne, with close competition between these two. Paine had the lead at the finish with Osborne just 10 seconds behind. This continued in race three until Paine made some errors and fell back at the halfway stage. Paine was able to pull ahead toward the end to secure this position.

Conrad Holm was the winner of the first race for the Optimists ahead of Thomas Lawa, Kyle Koeries and JP Buys. Holm had extended a lead of two minutes at the finish but Lawa was just 14 seconds ahead of Koeries. Holm was also the winner of race two, again with a big lead.

Lawa had a close finish from Koeries for second place, just three seconds ahead. Kyle Koeries was the winner of the third race, ahead of Lawa and Holm.