Davey’s Bay Yacht Club hosted the 52nd Victorian Flying 15 Championships over 7-9 March 2015.
25 crews competed in the 9 race championship with two dropped races, sailing in predominately fresh to solid 15-18 knot conditions with two of the 9 races held in sub 6 knot winds.
Peter Milne & Phillip Dubbin, “ff 3968 Lapse Of Reality” from Mordialloc S.C. won the championship with a race to spare in convincing style (4 x wins, a 2nd, 5th & 7th totalling 18 points). 2nd, 3rd & 4th were separated by one point only.
Sue Thompson and Cameron Taylor “ff3941 ARK” sailed consistently to take second spot (2 x wins, 3 x 4ths and 2 x 5ths) on 24 points.
Brothers Craig & Ian Rainey from GLYC “ff3880 Where The Bloody Hell Are You” together with David Williamson & Craig Morton MSC “ff4023 Cool Change” both finished the regatta on 25 points. After a countback and with a win in the third race the Raineys took to the podium.
With Milne/Dubbin electing not to sail the last race, Williamson/Morton had a 4 point buffer in second place from Sue and I and the Rainey’s tied for 3rd place.
After several restart’s the fleet finally got away in failing winds.  Williamson/Morton rounded the top mark for the return in 12th well behind the 3rd place boats and elected to sail the opposite side of the course and rounded 3rd and in front of the boats they needed to beat.  The breeze started to die and Williamson/Morton slipped back to 8th. ‘Thwe Ark” had a great run and managed to keep the boat going  by taking an indirect route to the wing mark.  There was a very hungry fleet with the pressure increasing but alas we were able to take the last race and the win to hold a second overall.
Jeni and Peter Danks “ff3919 Fforgetfull” held on to 5th spot after breaking a stay, Andrew Coutts and James Maskiel “ff3554 Total Recall-Rule 69” were 7th and Michael Oxley and Tony Wood “ff3905 Oxfactor” came in at 9th.
It was a series where consistency was going to pay, and all the podium winners scored a win at some point in the series.

Jim Callahan and Fred Steinkellner secured the handicap trophy.
In the silver division father and son duo, John and Rob Radnell “ff3307 Flying Boat” managed to fend off Lewis Davies and Christiana Lees “ff3244 Fformidable” to take the Silver trophy.
A great weekend was enjoyed by all, together with social highlights at the DBYC BBQ and the sponsors dinner at The Boathouse Restaurant.

2015 FFIVic State Championship Results