
"It was a great day for sailing last Saturday when the Batemans Bay Sailing Club keelboats headed out for a Bay Cup race. There was a 15 to 20 knot sea breeze. 8 boats were competing. Race officer Dave Magill and his trusty sidekick Terry Paton set a well balanced start line aboard the committee vessel "Clarence the Clocker".
From the start in the middle of the Bay the boats headed to a windward mark in Chain Bay, reached off to the Marine Park middle mark and then gybed down to the leeward mark at Caseys Beach. Then followed a windward and return lap and another triangle before heading to the finish line near Snapper Island.
After an even start "Accolade" (Lachlan Brown) under a full mainsail and number 3 headsail showed good speed and height to get to the windward mark first. Despite wrapping the spinnaker around the forestay at one stage, she kept going away for an easy line honours
win. Her sister ship "Attitude" carried her number 1 headsail and ended up being quite overpowered in the gusty conditions. "Moonmist" (Tony Sutton) also had some spinnaker troubles which sent her well wide of the wing mark before eventually getting the rogue sail down.
The Farr 11.6 "Valhalla" (Dion Perrins and Kathy Blankley) carried a small number 4 headsail to great effect in a much improved performance, finishing ahead of the big boat of the fleet "Xanthia" (James Gardiner). Peter Paterson did an incredible job just to get "Avior" around the course given that he was sailing single handed. He finished ahead of the bigger but cruisier North Shore 33 "The Shed" (Ron Spelman).
On PHS "Valhalla" won from "Avior" and "Xanthia". On AMS it was "Accolade" from "Attitude" and "Moonmist". In Division 2 the trailerable trimaran "Hobo" (Peter Withington) scored a convincing victory.
Full results are up on the BBSC website www.bbsc.org.au .
The next keelboat race will be the Bengello Property Services Broulee 2 Bays Race.