It was a great day for sailing on Saturday. The Batemans Bay keelboat sailing fleet took to the Bay for the first time in over 2 months.
There were big seas on the Clyde River entrance thanks to tropical cyclone Uesi, so a shorter course was set than planned. This enabled the yachts to go out and come back in either side of high tide.
Faced with a 5 knots ESE breeze, race office Dave Magill and his trusty sidekick Terry Paton set an excellent start line. The course consisted of an upwind leg from the start to the Marine Park middle mark and hence to the North Head mark, a reach around the southern end of the Toll Gates, then a run to the finish line at Caseys Beach.
6 yachts competed including "Valhalla" (Kathy Blankley and Dion Perrins) which was being sailed double handed. "Wishful Thinking" (Simon Dunlop) led around the top mark after finding it with pinpoint navigation. Once onto the run, "Moonmist"(Tony Sutton) came past running deeper than "Wishful" under her symmetrical spinnaker. The "Moonmist" crew fluffed the last gybe to the line and nearly gave the lead away, but held on for a narrow line
honours victory.
On AMS "Moonmist" had a more comfortable win over "Wishful" and "Accolade" (Lachlan Brown). "Xanthia" (James Gardiner) did well in th light conditions under her towering rig to win on PHS from "North Star" (John Drummond) and "Moonmist".
Full results are up on the BBSC website www.bbsc.org.au .
