It was another great day for sailing last Saturday when Batemans Bay Sailing Club held the 7th Bay Cup race of the season. The race was a handicap start event where quickest boats gave the slower boats a headstart based on past performances, so that ideally all the boats would finish at the same time. Race Officer Dave Magill and his trusty crew of Terry Paton and Roger Rowe aboard the committee boat “Clarence the Clocker” faced a real challenge setting a true course. A gradient nor’wester was blowing from the land with a nor’east sea breeze coming in from the ocean. They converged in the middle of the Bay forming a windless transition zone. Magill set a triangular course between the Chain Bay mark, the Marine Park middle mark and a laid mark off Square Head. The Div 1 boats sailed to the laid mark first following a hotdog/triangle/hotdog format. The Div 2 boats omitted the last lap.
“North Star” skippered by John Drummond was first off followed by Bay Cup 6 winner “Ghoster” (Dion Perrins) and the mighty X45 “Xanthia” (James Gardiner). Tony Sutton was single handing “Avior”. The Adams 10.6 sister ships “Wishful Thinking” (Andrew Bain) and “Accolade” (Lachlan Brown) were the back markers. “Ghoster” was looking good until she sailed into the large windless void in the middle of the course and was unable to ghost out of there. “Xanthia” was able to use her momentum to cross the transition zone and sail through to a win on PHS. “Avior” was second while “North Star” was third. In the AMS battle “Wishful Thinking” looked gone until Andrew Bain played his get out of gaol card. “Wishful” came straight past “Accolade” while the latter was stuck in the hole. “Accolade” eventually got going again and sailed over the top of “Wishful” close to the finish to gain the victory on AMS.
In Div 2 the trailerable trimaran “Hobo” skippered by Peter Withington sailed patiently to finish ahead of “Vital Spark” (Richard Dunne). Full results are up on the BBSC website www.bbsc.org.au .
Click for larger, captions and slideshow - photos taken by Terry Paton and Roger Rowe
