Batemans Bay Sailing Club Report - Dec 3rd 2022

It was a great day for sailing last Saturday when Batemans Bay Sailing Club held the fourth Bay Cup race of the season. 5 yachts headed out on a beautiful sunny day with a 15 to 20 knot seabreeze. Race officer Terry Paton and his trusty sidekick Andrew Bain set a boat end favoured start line. "Attitude" (Greg Taylor) got the best of the start and proceeded to lead around the windward mark in Chain Bay with "Wishful Thinking" (Simon Dunlop) and "Accolade" (Lachlan Brown) just astern.

"Accolade" was the only one of the three Adams sister ships to set a spinnaker on the second reach from the Marine Park middle mark to the leeward mark at Caseys Beach, so was allowed to sail into the lead by default. "Wishful" was sailing short handed but went for the kite on the next run and stayed in touch. "Wishful" was able to hold a higher line on starboard tack on what turned out to be the last work. The crew on "Accolade" saw her coming and tacked over to cover, crossing the line 30 seconds ahead to win line honours and on AMS.

"Attitude" was carrying her biggest headsail and became overpowered towards the end of the race. "Moonmist" (Celia Davey) hung in there on a day which favoured the yachts designed by the late Joe Adams over the one penned by Bruce Farr. "Sail La Vie" (John Drummond) keeps on improving and notched up another win on PHS. Full results are up on the BBSC website. Our next Saturday race will be the Lady Skippers' race on December 17th, traditionally the most fiercely contested event of the keelboat season

Above: PHS winner "Sail La Vie" (John Drummond) and another taken just after the start with (from L to R) "Sail La Vie, "Moonmist", "Accolade" and "Attitude" - photos by Terry Paton.