It was a great day for sailing on Saturday when Batemans Bay Sailing Club held the 5th race of this season’s Bay Cup series. This was a handicap start race where the quicker boats gave the slower boats a headstart based on past performances. Race Officer Dave Magill and his trusty sidekicks Terry Paton and Roger Rowe aboard the committee vessel “Clarence the Clocker” set a boat end favoured start line. The course consisted of a work from the start to Chain Bay, a shy reach to the marine park middle mark followed by a broad reach to the leeward mark at Caseys Beach then windward and return legs to Chain Bay and back.
Above: Dion Perrins’ Farr 9.2 yacht “Ghoster” and below: of Andrew Bain’s Adams 10.6 “Wishful Thinking” (photos Terry Paton).
Dion Perrins’ lovely cruiser racer “Ghoster” was first off, continuing her short handed run with three on board so there would be no spinnakers today. She was followed by John Drummond’s North Shore 310 “True North” then the mighty X45 “Xanthia” skippered by James Gardiner. The smallest boat in the fleet, the well sailed S80 “Avior”, skippered by Tony Sutton actually started after the biggest boat “Xanthia”. The final three boats were the Adams 10.6 sister ships “Attitude” (Simon Byrne), “Accolade” (Lachlan Brown) and “Wishful Thinking” (Andrew Bain). The last two boats were off at the same time, although Bain was in a generous mood and started 30 seconds later than necessary. By this stage the lead boats were already around the top mark.
The bigger boats made gains on the spinnaker reach down to Caseys. On the next work the breeze dropped from 15 knots to below 5 knots at times, favouring the boats which were in front. “Ghoster” maintained her lead to the finish to win from “Avior” and “Attitude”. “Wishful” and “Accolade” had a great duel around the course. “Accolade” finished two seconds ahead, but rates slightly higher on AMS so “Wishful” claimed the AMS victory by four seconds from “Accolade” and “Attitude”. Full results are up on the BBSC website www.bbsc.org.au
