It was a great day for sailing on Saturday when Batemans Bay Sailing Club held the annual Bengello Property Services Broulee Race. The course was from a start near Denhams Beach down to a mark off North Broulee, another mark off Tomakin and back to the finish line off Caseys Beach. It was blowing 15 to 25 knots from the south so most of the boats were carrying #3 genoas with a reef in the mainsail. “Wishful Thinking” (Andrew Bain) had 6 crew on board so was able to cope with a full mainsail, powering into the lead on the work to Burrewarra Point. However, she overstood Burrewarra when the wind backed slightly, allowing “Accolade” (Lachlan Brown) to catch up. These two were overlapped coming around the Broulee mark and again at Burrewarra Point on the way back.
“Accolade” was first to put her spinnaker up for the run home and after a couple of round ups, shot off at speeds of up to 15 knots building a seemingly unassailable lead approaching the finish. However, she got overpowered close to the finish line and the crew decided to lower the spinnaker. They succeeded only in lowering the spinnaker into the water which prevented all forward progress. It took several minutes to retrieve the spinnaker.
“Wishful Thinking” Meanwhile “Wishful” came past for the win in a manner which recalled Steven Bradbury’s gold medal race 17 years before. “Accolade” managed to get going in time to hold onto second place in front of “Attitude” (Simon Byrne) which had been off her usual pace all day. “Valhalla” (Dion Perrins and Kathie Blankley) had a more cruisey sail, coming in half an hour after “Wishful”.
The smaller Division 2 boats sailed the Toll Gate Classic course inside the Bay. The trailerable trimaran “Hobo” (Peter Withington) scored the line honours/PHS double in front of “Vital Spark”(Richard Dunne) and “Lollipop” (Deb Keeley). “Lollipop” was close enough to come in second on PHS. Thanks must go to Andrew Bain for putting in the marks off Broulee and Tomakin, race officer Dave Magill and his crew aboard the committee boat “Clarence the Clocker” and to race sponsor Simon Lowth.
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