Port Macquarie Sailing Club

12-4-26

PORT Macquarie Sailing Club’s 3^rd race of the handicap start series was held on Sunday under sunny skies in a very variable Westerly. The race was run in the last of the run out tide. Jeff Walsh set a 3 lap, Port buoy course with an up river start working to buoy A across the river from the Governors Way Canal, a reach across to buoy B just off the Rowing Club, a long run down to buoy C just past Stevens Street, another reach across to buoy D well into the mouth of Limeburners Creek, and a work back to the Start/Finish line to complete the lap. The Westerly breeze was great as the fleet went on the water, but as the timer counted down to the start, the breeze eased, leading to a slow start. By the time most of the fleet were down the bottom end of the course, large areas were glassed out, and the talk was of shortening the course to 1 lap. The decision was held off long enough to see the breeze build again allowing the 2^nd lap to be completed in half the time of the first. The breeze looked like dying again, so the shortened course flag was deployed at buoy D to make it a 2 lap race. The breeze did ease a little but didn’t glass out again.

In the Arrow Cat division, Jack Corthals on ‘Crackerjack’ was scratch boat and came from behind to finish ahead of Tony and Julian Kuhn on ‘Stella’ who had started 5 minutes earlier.

The Monohull division was dominated by Steve Couch in his Laser ‘Lazybuoy’ who held is early start time of 18 very well. Jock Simpson and Stuart Simons in the Tasar ‘Voyager’ also held their start time of 16 to take 2^nd place ahead of Rob Barwick in his Impulse ‘Drift’ who had started on 10. Germain Corthals tried his hand at Impulse sailing in ‘Serenity’ starting on 18 to get 4^th place followed by Steve and Lucy Bohlsen in their MG14 ‘Interceptor’ who had started on 12. Simon Gandy and Esra Mert in their MG14 ‘Vamos’ started as scratch boat, but when the breeze came in after rounding buoy D for the first time, their mast came off the step pin causing their rig to come down and resulting in a tow home for a DNF.

Next week is Sprint Races 12-16 starting at 10.30am for the first 2 or 3 races, a lunch break, then the remaining races. Frank O’Rourke is on duty.

By Jeff WALSH