Easter Saturday was a great day for sailing when Batemans Bay Sailing Club held its last race of the yacht racing season. 5 boats went out.
After a short delay while the wind settled in, race officer Terry Paton and his trusty sidekick Andrew Bain set a boat end favoured line. This led to a boat end traffic jam at the start. "Moonmist" (Tony Sutton) got the best start forcing "Xanthia" (James Gardiner) and "Accolade" (Lachlan Brown) to tack away. The gap was soon magnified by a persistent backing shift in the seabreeze.
"Moonmist" led around the top mark from "Wishful Thinking" (Simon Dunlop). "Wishful" was the only boat to attempt a spinnaker on the reach from the Yellow Rock to the Toll Gates mark but it came out of the bag with a wineglass which took some time to untwist. She got
through to the lead on the run down to the Caseys Beach mark and held the lead up the next work to Yellow Rock. On the final run to the finish "Accolade" and "Moonmist" worked the angles better to come past, finishing alongside each other after two hours of racing.
"Moonmist" took the win on both AMS and PHS. "Rainbow Runner" (Geoff Scott) put in an improved performance to finish second on PHS with "Xanthia" in third. On AMS "Accolade" was second ahead of "Wishful".
BBSC will be running a winter series starting May 1st. This is traditionally a more cruisey style of race which suits social sailing.
See the program at www.bbsc.org.au
The start
Kite Finish
photos taken by Terry Paton
