It was a beautiful early summer day and here I was a volunteer official on the finish line of the last round – the medal round – of the ISAF World Cup.

I know a little about race officiating but was a little nervous about such a big event as we waited at St Kilda Marina to pick of the other officials.  My club the Hobsons Bay Yacht Club had provided our club boat to be the set the finish line and record the results.

Maria from Valencia (oh how I loved Spain) quickly assured us that we needed to just do as she said.  Press the hooter when she said now, raise the flag when she said now etc.

She was a quiet woman but chatting away after fine tuning the reach angles and waiting for starts her experience was slowly revealed an on water official at two Olympics, Principal race offer for the TP52 series in Europe.

Great I just did what I was told, enjoy the racing and take some photos.

From the boat we had a great view of the start and the final rounding mark leading to the finish.

We were officiating 5 races all deciding the series for that class.

There was the Men’s and Women 470 class.

The Finn a hard boat to sail for big strong blokes.

The women’s laser radial and men’s laser the boats of single handed skill.

The last race the Men’s laser

A tightly fought race,

with a fairy tale end.

With Pavlos Kontides winning his first ever international series gold medal,  having won an Olympic Silver Medal and many other placings in a decade of senior sailing in the laser.