Sydney City Marine Winter Series - Hughie on a winter break

by Brendan Rourke on 20 May 2011 Sydney City Marine Winter Series, Middle Harbour Yacht Club, Sydney Harbour, Saturday 14th May.

Well well well, Hughie must be on his winter break. A beautiful sunny day with a forecast 5 to 10 knots going east and dying.

For once the forecast was correct. Finally the Start Boat put up the Course 7 Board.

Division 1 had a clear start but it did seem a tad congested at the pin end. As they started the wind commenced to die out.

Then came the discussion about the wind off the Dobroyd Headland verses the wind to come from New Zealand. Those that opted for the Dobroyd wind seemed the early winners.

The yachts that went to NZ picked up a breeze and scooted towards Middle Head to join the Division1 and 2 fleets. Those at the Bombora got a huge lift that took most of them around the Bombora Mark and were looking good. At this point there was a matching wind and boat speed 00.00!

The left side fleet were able to sneak down the Middle Head shore. As the fleet were off Cobblers Beach the wind changed and there were calls was for a shy kite.

The Divisions 1 and 2 fleets were now all inter mingled and the mark rounding was going to be interesting.

Some yachts gybed at Rocky Point and were able to sail around the mass fleet at the marks.

Going up was the right thing to do as the wind was from the right. The yachts to the left were running out of breeze and slowing. As the fleet approached the Bombora Marks it was pole up and be ready for the hoist. Once up the angles from the various yachts was interesting.

The Start Boat was on station at Manly West. Great a shortened course. But there were other flags below the 'S' flag. But with no breeze it was hard to tell what they were. It turned out they were Numeral 2 and 3. This meant the big yachts had to go around one more lap.

The results were as follows:

Division 1

PHS: Nine Dragons (Bob Cox) by 23 seconds from MRZ (Phillip Rowe)and a further 1 min 4 seconds to Kerisma (Dawson/ Lawson).

IRC: Kerisma by 17 seconds from Nine Dragons with Stormaway (Jack Stenning) third.

Division 2

A double to Jessica Rabbit (Bruce Millar) by 59 seconds to Impeccable (John Walker) and another 18 seconds to Acrewed Interest (John Winchester)

Division 3

In The Red (Warren Lesnie) by 29 seconds from Heart of Gold (Geoff Charters) and another 42 seconds to Twitcher (Steve and Judith Plante).

Very close racing.

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