Race Report - Saturday 23 November 2024

All photos by Jules Hall

Spring Point Score Races 9 & 10

Report by Jason Wilkins

A picture-perfect sailing day welcomed 39 entries to Sydney Harbour on Saturday: perfect blue skies, a steady 15-20 knot north-easterly and plenty of on-water excitement!

At the briefing Rod Barnes announced that the fleets would be trying the “mass start” with everyone starting together.  PRO Jules Hall set a long start line with little bias and this enabled a clean start for each race in the strong wind with 20 knot gusts.  The course looked long enough although the leaders raced around the course in around 30 minutes with some screaming downwind legs. It was noteworthy that the Radials were more than holding their own against the Standards upwind in the strong winds and some very courageous gybes were seen at both wing and leeward marks.

The only adjustment made for Race 10 was to move the wing mark down in the direction of the harbour bridge to try and balance out the reaches.  The number of finishers for the second race was notably smaller with many sailors already having had “enough of a good time”.

The reserve RIB was on the water and both RIBs kept a watchful eye on the multiple capsizes especially during the first downwind legs of Race 9.  Everyone appeared to be able to recover and not needing rescuing, although there were a series of minor breakages including: snapped downhauls, a bent boom and even a rudder downhaul.  There was one eventful rescue involving DBSC which many sailors may not have seen involving a struggling small yacht and our own Brett Beyer. The yacht in question appeared to be completely overwhelmed, and struggled to pull down their mainsail and control a jib, and did not appear to have engine power.  After drifting down through the course and the start line, Brett tried to provide advice and coaching before finally attempting to tow them away from Clark Island.  Maritime Rescue turned up to complete the job and tow them away.  Well done to Brett for assisting a boat in distress!

Handicap Honours:

• ILCA 4. Race 9 Jasper Kinsman.

• ILCA 6. Race 9 Andrew Cox Race 10 Sylvie Stannage

• ILCA 7. Race 9 and 10 Campbell Patton (and line honours).

Thanks to our very busy on-water team of Jules Hall & Jason Wilkins on the Jazzman, Rob Blum and Michelle Waters on the Paul Adam II, and Daryl Lawrence on the Bergman. Also, thanks to Paul and Shirley in the canteen, assisted by Andrew Simpson and David Evenden, with handicapping by Daryl Lawrence.