It was a great day for sailing on Saturday when Batemans Bay Sailing Club held the 5th Bay Cup race of the season. The main drama of the day happened well before the race when the BBSC committee boat "Dave Magill" had an engine failure at just about the worst moment imaginable on the way out to the Clyde River entrance.
Race officer Terry Paton and his trusty sidekick Peter Withington deployed boat hooks to stop the boat hitting the breakwall while awaiting a tow from Batemans Bay Marine Rescue. Fortunately the Marine Rescue crew were on the scene within about 10 minutes and got the "Dave Magill" out of danger before any major damage was done. Several bystanders also helped out on the breakwall. BBSC would like to convey thanks to them and to the Batemans Bay Marine Rescue team.
This left the fleet of 5 yachts without a race officer or start line. After a few radio calls, plan B was put into action. It involved using the club's finish line off Caseys Beach as a start line, timing the start off GPS and sailing the nor'east course which fortuitously turned out to be the correct course for the prevailing wind. This is a triangle, windward return, triangle course. "Wishful Thinking" (Simon Dunlop) pulled off a port tack start but it was "Accolade" (Lachlan Brown) which led around the top mark in Chain Bay. None of the crews went for spinnakers on the reaching legs to the Marine Park middle mark and hence back to Caseys, but on the windward return leg "Accolade" set hers and got up to 11 knots running down to Caseys. "Wishful" had to drop her kite when the tack line shackle failed, allowing "Accolade" to push on for the win on line honours and AMS.
"Moonmist" was missing Tony Sutton who was delivering "Rum Rebellion" back from the Sydney Hobart. Robin Davey took the helm and skippered "Moonmist" to second on PHS behind "Wishful" but ahead of "Sail La Vie" (John Drummond), "Accolade" and "Cool Change" (Richard Dunne). Full results are up on the BBSC website www.bbsc.org.au. The next BBSC keelboat race is a Bay Cup race on February 11th.
