It was a great day for sailing last Saturday when Batemans Bay Sailing Club conducted the annual 3 Bays Race. The 32 nautical mile course from Batemans Bay to Beagle Bay hence North Broulee and back to Batemans Bay is the longest on the BBSC calendar. 5 yachts went out in a building nor'east sea breeze.
Race officer Terry Paton and his trusty offsider Peter Withington set a very even start line. Although "Moonmist" (Tony Sutton) and "Accolade" (Lachlan Brown) got the best of the start, "Wishful Thinking" (Simon Dunlop) made the winning move by noticing the first mark was way over the right side of the course and tacking off early to sail straight to it. "Moonmist" soon followed suit but the brains trust on "Accolade" took a long time to realise where the first mark was. "Accolade" overlaid the mark so far she lost 7 minutes sailing downwind to round it.
There followed an uncomfortable bash up the coast to the rounding mark off South Durras. The exciting spinnaker run down to Broulee made up for it with "Wishful" and "Accolade" both hitting speeds of 15 knots. "Moonmist" set their chicken chute and managed a relatively sedate top speed of 12 knots. The excitement came to an end aboard "Wishful" when their spinnaker shredded itself, making it an expensive day out for the skipper. "Accolade" and "Moonmist" both wrapped their spinnakers around their respective forestays while attempting to gybe off Burrewarra Point.
A more serious incident occurred further back when "Cool Change" (Richard Dunne) lost a crew member overboard. He was kept in sight at all times and retrieved after 10 minutes in the water. "Cool Change" prudently retired from the race at that point. At the tail of the fleet "Sail La Vie" (John Drummond) was taking a more laid back cruisey approach to the day.
The wind was gusting to 25 knots on the final work from North Broulee back to Batemans Bay. The remaining boats all took in mainsail reefs and were sailing under #3 or #4 genoas. Line honours went to "Wishful" in the fast time of 5 hours. This was 4 minutes ahead of "Accolade" with "Moonmist" and "Sail La Vie" well astern. On PHS "Wishful" won from "Accolade" and "Sail La Vie". On AMS calculations it was "Wishful" first from "Accolade" and "Moonmist". Thanks must go to Geoff Perrem for setting the South Durras mark and to Andrew Bain for dropping in the North Broulee mark."
Above: Sail La Vie
The Start
Cool Change
The Start
