A perfect day's sailing on Sydney Harbour - Audi Winter Series

by Jennifer Crooks on 21 Jun 2009
After a very wet, rainy and cold week in Sydney, Race Eight of the Audi Winter Series 2009 turned out to be a perfect day’s sailing after a small delay.

With 128 yachts taking to the water on a somewhat cloudy and overcast morning, racing was delayed for 40 minutes whilst the breeze filled in. Once the breeze filled in from the north east at 12-13 knots, racing got underway at 1205hrs for the Sydney 38 One Design and 1210hrs for Division A-K, sailing a full course on course B.

PRO John Hurley said that today was always going to be a good day. 'There was plenty of gradient out there, so it was just about waiting for the breeze to fill in and making the best of the conditions. The breeze hung in all day from the nor’east, dropping to 8-9 knots after the start of racing.'

'Whilst racing started late, a full fast course was able to be sailed. Yachts again were able to get a good long work from the Shark Island up to
Cannae Point and to the Junction Bell buoy. A perfect day’s sailing for all!' concluded John.

In Division J, Miles Bastick and Jon Short’s MRX finished first, with Shaaron Walsh’s Trim and Arthur Lane’s Inkonkoni third.

'It was a fantastic day on water today. It’s the first race of the season where the breeze was consistent right from the start – it started out very fresh and continued to hold throughout the day. The conditions today were perfect for MRX, a 20 year old 34ft yacht. We have been competing with bigger boats in our division that are 40-45ft and this has made for pretty tough racing throughout the winter series just to try to keep up with them' said Jon Short.

'Towards the end of the race, the breeze lightened a little, which meant we had a very close finish with Trim – we held them off as we had been able to get ourselves in a strong position during the race and finished off with the win! I would be a very happy owner if the handicapper was kind to us and kept us on the same handicap for next week!' concluded Jon.

In Division K, Patrick and Roberta Easton’s In Cahoots finished first with Brian Clayton’s Quetzal second and Herman Heiligers’ Hubcap II third.

'It was a pretty good race for us today – we had a really good team who called good tactics all day and made no mistakes,' said Patrick Easton.

'There has been good handicapping all Audi Winter Series which has seen some really close racing in our division. At the end of the last leg we managed to get over Hubcap II and come up with the win. It was such as good feeling to overcome them on that last leg,' concluded Patrick.

In Division H, Peter Howes’ Sea Rug Hoo Ha finished first with John Ackland’s Imagine second and Peter Campbell’s Hornblower third.

Other division winners included Geoff Lavis’ UBS Wild Thing (Division A), Darryl Hodgkinson’s Vivacite (Division B), Andrew Stoeckel’s Integrity (Division C), Justin Pelly’s Crosshaven (Division D), Barry and Jeremy Crook’s Devil’s Lair (Division E), Greg Maughan’s Syonara (Division F), Lewis and Broekhuizen’s Perfect Match (Division G), and Larki Missiris’ Wild One (Sydney 38OD).

For Full divisional results please log on to http://www.cyca.com.au/sysfile/downloads/2009/club/aws09/08RGrp1.htm

For provisional pointscores of Division A-K please log on to http://www.cyca.com.au/sysfile/downloads/2009/club/aws09/SGrp1.htm

For Sydney 38 One Design results please log on to http://www.cyca.com.au/sysfile/downloads/2009/club/awss38/08RGrp2.htm

For Sydney 38 One Design Handicap pointscore please log on to http://www.cyca.com.au/sysfile/downloads/2009/club/awss38/SGrp2.htm