Rain and a threatening forecast deterred a few boats from joining Batemans Bay Sailing Club’s Broulee Race last Saturday, but it turned out to be a great day for sailing. The diehard crews on “Moonmist” (Tony Sutton), “Accolade” (Lachlan Brown) and “Wishful Thinking” (Simon Dunlop) headed out in a 10 to 20 knot westerly. The rain cleared up before the start.
Race officer Andrew Bain set a downwind start. “Moonmist” and “Accolade” each carried a #3 headsail with a reef in the mainsail while “Wishful” went with a full main and #4. After an even start all three crews set spinnakers for the broad reach to Black Rock. The kites came down and the reefs were shaken out on rounding Black Rock for the beam reach to Burrewarra. It was then hard on the wind across Broulee Bay to a rounding mark off North Broulee.
The reaching legs favoured “Accolade” and “Wishful” but “Moonmist” carried plenty of height on starboard tack out of Burrewarra to make up ground. The run back to Burrewarra favoured Moonmist which was able to run square under her symmetrical spinnaker while “Accolade” and “Moonmist” gybed back and forth.
“Accolade” got away again on the reach back to Black Rock and the fetch to the finish line inside Snapper Island. “Moonmist” closed up again in the last few hundred metres, getting a sensational lift on rounding Snapper Island to finish less than 3 minutes behind “Accolade”, with “Wishful” a further minute astern.
It was a quick race to Broulee and back. All three boats finished in just over 3 hours, averaging around 6.5 knots for the course. On PHS “Moonmist” won easily from “Accolade” and “Wishful Thinking”. The next BBSC keelboat race will be a Bay Cup race on November 27th. Tony Sutton will be holding an “Introduction to keelboat sailing” day on November 28th.
Above: the fleet heading off to Broulee under shortened sail soon after the start (photo: Terry Paton)
