Botany Bay Race line honours to Shortwave

by Jennifer Crooks on 20 Nov 2010 Champagne sailing was how Matt Short described conditions after sailing his TP52 Shortwave to a line honours victory in today’s 30 nautical mile Botany Bay Race, sailed from Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay (south of Sydney) and return.

The Botany Bay Race was the third race of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Ocean Pointscore Series (OPS).

Short and his crew have been hanging out for this race as they elected not to sail in the Grant Thornton Short Ocean Pointscore series this season. 'It was perfect conditions today – not rough with beautiful sunshine but boy was the competition fierce.'

'It was such tight racing out there today; we were third behind Vamp and UBS Wild Thing at the Botany Bay mark, with Merlin right on our hammer,' Short recalled. 'Once we rounded the mark, the conditions were perfect for reaching, and the TP can fly on a good reach!'

Those flying conditions gave Shortwave the line honours win in a race time of 4 hrs, 25 mins and 19sec, a lead of five minutes from Commodore Garry Linacre and David Fuller’s Corby 49 Vamp, with Geoff Lavis’ flying toothpick UBS Wild Thing crossing the line a further five minutes behind. David Forbes Kaiko 52 Merlin was fourth over the line with an elapsed time of 4 hrs, 45 mins and 48 seconds.

Ray Harris’ two year old Beneteau 44.7 Honeysuckle, sailing under the Middle Harbour Yacht Club burgee, claimed the IRC win. 'This is the nicest phone call I’ve had in a while, quipped an elated Harris this afternoon after being informed of his win. 'The crew are going to be on fire!'

'We were extremely lucky to have come away with the win today. The light airs didn’t suit our boat but we managed to hold our target speed throughout the race. It was a relatively fast finish – we had a shy kite on the return leg home with the boat averaging 6.4 knots of boat speed.' he added.

CYCA member Julian Farren-Price’s Cookson 12 About Time finished second in IRC Division with Vamp third.
After taking line honours in the Grant Thornton Short Haul races to Pittwater and back last weekend Rod Wills’ X-43 Great Xpectations has added a PHS Division win to her summer scorecard. Stephen Thomas’ Cookson 12 BlackAdder finished second in PHS Division with Michael Selby’s X-412 Cyrene third.

Colin and Denise Wilson’s Mkl 49 Never a Dull Moment still maintains a strong lead in both the IRC and PHS divisions of the overall series pointscore. Vamp is second in IRC division five points adrift with About Time a further point behind holding onto third place. About Time also holds onto third place in the PHS overall pointscore with Great Xpectations placed second.

Seventeen yachts contested today’s race to Botany Bay, organised by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. The next OPS race will be held in conjunction with Middle Harbour Yacht Club's Short Ocean Racing Championship on November 27.

Results click here