It was a great day for sailing on December 14th when Batemans Bay Sailing Club held the fourth Bay Cup race of the season. Thankfully bushfire conditions had eased and the Kings Highway reopening (albeit temporary) allowed Canberra based sailors to come down for the day. A fleet of 8 yachts headed out to meet race officer Dave Magill and his trusty crew of Terry Paton and Roger Rowe aboard the committee boat "Clarence the Clocker".
This was a handicap start race with the quicker boats giving the slower boats a headstart based on previous performances. Theoretically all the boats would finish at the same time. From the startline the boats sailed upwind to the marine park middle mark, ran down to the Caseys Beach mark and then reached across to a laid mark near Square Head. The remainder of the course was a work up to the middle mark and a run back to the finish near Snapper Island. The predominance of square running favoured the boats with symmetrical spinnakers.
Geoff Scott led out early on his Van de Stadt "Rainbow Runner" followed by the S80 "Avior" (Peter Paterson). They were too short handed to set spinnakers and soon gave up their lead. "The Shed" (Ron Spelman) came past flying the big pink spinnaker formerly belonging to "Ghoster" where it had been comprehensively destroyed but then rebuilt by Al Rosier. "Xanthia" (James Gardiner) made a run of it but was also sailing short handed and unable to set her big kite. Conditions suited the Farr 1020 "Moonmist" (Tony Sutton) which sailed a mistake free race to set the fastest time.
Amongst the Adams 10.6 trio, only "Attitude" (Simon Byrne) had a designated bowperson on board, but they ended up having the spinnaker debacle of the day. "Accolade" (Lachlan Brown) made up time on "Wishful Thinking" (Simon Dunlop) but couldn't quite get past before the finish. Likewise at the head of the fleet "The Shed" narrowly held off "Moonmist" for the win on PHS. "Avior" was third. On AMS "Moonmist" won easily from "Accolade" and "Wishful Thinking".
Full results are up on the BBSC website www.bbsc.org.au . BBSC racing will resume on January 4th and 5th with the South Coaster regatta
Above: the start
Below: The finish
