It was a great day for sailing last Saturday when Batemans Bay Sailing Club held the third Bay Cup race of the season. The format was a handicap start which meant the quicker boats gave the slower boats a head start based on past performance. Theoretically all the boats should finish at the same time. A record fleet of 10 boats headed out although "Horizon" (MIchelle Grybatis) was just cruising.
Race officer Dave Magill aboard the committee boat "Clarence the Clocker" set a course for the prevailing 10 to 15 knot sea breeze. The course was a triangle/windward return/triangle with a windward mark at Yellow Rock, the wing mark being the Marine Park middle mark and the leeward mark laid off Square Head. Later "Clarence" developed gearbox problems and had to be towed in by Marine Rescue. The finish line was shifted to Caseys Beach. Terry Paton leapt from "Clarence" after she got back to the marina and found a vantage point at Caseys Beach to time the boats as they crossed the finish line.
Meanwhile out on the water the early front runners "Rainbow Runner" (Geoff Scott), "Avior" (Peter Paterson) and "The Shed" (Ron Spelman) all headed right up the first leg and found themselves on the wrong side of a windshift as the breeze backed from ENE to NE.
"Xanthia"(James Gardiner) was looking good but didn't have enough crew on board to set the spinnaker. Further back "Accolade" (Lachlan Brown) was delayed when the spinnaker halyard detached from the spinnaker and went to the top of the mast. "Accolade" was able to blanket "Wishful Thinking" (Simon Dunlop) and stop her from getting past.
"Moonmist" (Tony Sutton) was about to take the lead but misread the course and headed off to the wrong mark. This allowed "Attitude" (Simon Byrne) through to the front and she held off "Accolade" to the finish. However, the winner on PHS was the Farr 11.6 "Valhalla" (Kathie Blankley and Dion Perrins) which sailed a largely mistake free race. "Accolade" got the fastest time and won on AMS.
Full results are up on the BBSC website www.bbsc.org.au .
The next BBSC keelboat race is the Durras Race on November 30th
