On Sunday 11th April we ran a Masters & Apprentices Regatta at ZVYC In Cape Town. ZVYC is the home club for 420s in South Africa, being the club that introduced the class in the country.
The club also runs a successful Optimist training programme, and quite a few notable South African Optimist sailors have come through the ZVYC programme.
The Optimist sailing programme is quite intense, and when finally sailors age out, some of them have not really made a plan on what to sail next. By organizing a 420 Club Regatta for these sailors we wanted to offer them the possibility to try a boat that they could transition to in the future.
We chose a relatively free weekend at the end of the sailing season, when the wind is also not too strong anymore and we ran a 5 races, one discard regatta.
Each team had to be made up by an experienced 420 sailor (the Master) and a 420 Novice (the Apprentice). An Apprentice may not have sailed a 420 National or Provincial championship yet. If he/she has sailed a National championship that sailor will be considered a Master. There is no rule on who helms and who crews, and the two sailors are allowed to switch as often as they wish.
