Above: the stately Tradewind and the colourful Chili were the two Yardstick winners on Sunday
Once again strong NNE winds constrained the day’s two races to the area of Coila Lake in front of the Kyla Park recreation hall. We look forward to some lighter winds in summer, allowing use of the longer courses which take in more of this scenic lake. These conditions served as a good trial of the proposed new support vessel Alpine Rescue, which performed admirably once we had worked out how to start her.
In the first race Chili (Anna and Ben Woolnough) led all the way to take line honours and first place after Yardstick correction, as well as first place on Performance Handicap. The larger Tradewind (Allan Rees and Dave Gibson) also followed the lines of stronger wind to take second place on Yardstick, while the Maricat Lightning (Greg Sparrius) separated the Taipans Dark Horse (Mark Barraclough) and Knockout (Rob Currall).
Race two saw an epic tussle between the Taipans, Dark Horse taking line honours by less than a minute. After time corrections, the three-race winning streak of Chili was broken: Tradewind, despite popping her spinnaker, took out the Yardstick result and Dark Horse took the Performance Handicap contest.
Summary results were:
Race 1 on Yardstick: (1) Chili (2) Tradewind (3) Dark Horse
Race 1 on Performance Handicap: (1) Chili (2) Dark Horse (3) Tradewind
Race 2 on Yardstick: (1) Tradewind (2) Chili (3) Dark Horse
Race 2 on Performance Handicap: (1) Dark Horse (2) Knockout (3) Chili
There will be two more racing days before the Christmas break: Sunday 10 December and Sunday 17 December. Note these dates are only a week apart as it was felt racing on Christmas Eve would not be popular with sailors’ domestic management.
