Sportboats storm the line at the Port Line Cup

by Steve Hall on 10 Aug 2009 Tight racing in even tighter conditions produced many groundings and ‘coming togethers’ in the 2009 Port Line Cup.

'We went aground cutting across the channel markers, and had a bit of a collision more of a ‘gentle tap’ really!, we were going really well and had a great day' said veteran racer and boat builder Graham Jones, speaking after competing in this year’s Port Line Cup in his boat Second Wind 2

The mid-winter race always produces drama’s of one sort of another with Sunday’s race a great spectacle for many friends and families cheering competitors on from the river banks.

The Port Line Cup has five divisions, four keelboat, and one trailer yacht. With each division starting 10 minutes apart and the largest boats starting last. The course from Port Adelaide Sailing club at Snowdens Beach on the Port river to Outer Harbor with a loop back to the Submarine base finishing back at the start.

This year the fifty first Port Line Cup with coincidentally 51 entries choosing to sail in an ebbing tide and wintery conditions of light rain and cold light Northeasterly winds.

Race officer John Woollatt commenting 'This is the first race of the season, competitors will usually find sailing in the river a little more difficult, there are a number of areas in the river where sandbars go further out than competitors might expect'. Continuing he said 'A lot of tactics between the same types of boats. However, generally the larger boats catch by the third arm and sail through the fleet, turn at the top mark then need to sail through the fleet again so some safety issues there and tactic issues to stay to windward of the approaching boats'.

The Sports boats relished the light reaching conditions, with Chritistie Sailing Club’s Mark Reed and his boat Voodoo Child a Masram 750 leading from the line, after two boats over early in this division.

Division 1 started with more excitement and the ‘coming together’ of a number of boats off the start line.

At the Top mark, the Sporties had overtaken the previous starters, leaving the heavier boats ‘stuck’ to the water. The sportsboat fleet rounding the mark with asymmetric spinnakers pulling strongly in the cool light breeze.

At the gun, Bill Van Reit’s Mighty Fine Lyons, with a big lead, followed over by the Darren Degilio’s elegant Bullistic the only division 1 racer able to make inroads into the Sportsboat fleet, Bullistic finishing at 14:40:31

The rest of the Sportsboats finishing together along with a lone J24 - Mike McGlinchey’s Kiazen 2 from the highly competitive local J24 fleet. The breeze died completely about 4pm, shutting out most of the division 2 and 3 boats.

With a number of protests for collisions the preliminary results for the Port Line Cup;

First Place: Voodoo Child, M Read
Second Place: Might Fine Lyons B Van Reit
Third Place: Kiazen 2, M McGlinchey

The prizegiving is on the 14th of August, which will include a video of the event produced by local marine event media; Dreamstreams.tv