PORT Macquarie Yacht Club has a minimums rule for racing with a breeze holding at 4.5 knots required to commence racing.
Last Sunday Officer of the Day Teddy Clausen fortunately found the bare minimum to start the scheduled ocean buoy (short ocean triangle event) from the Bird Rock starting line.
With competing events reducing available crew numbers, five yachts faced a downwind start where variations in the available breeze quickly separated the yachts. Leeward starter, Andrew Walmsley’s Enticer found a favourable line of breeze, and established a lead of a hundred meters over the next yachts which struggled to find usable pressure.
At the pin end, Cool Change, with Teddy Clausen helming, appeared to win the scrap with Frank Lagudi on Third Man, and after finding sufficient breeze deployed her spinnaker and was mostly able to keep it flying for the next two legs, pulling away from Third Man, and performing remarkably to minimise the gap to Enticer at the sea mark.
Towards the middle of the line, the Adrian Duvernet’s Kookaburra 2 crossed the start ahead of Razamatazz 2, which, with Andrew Macleod helming, hit the start line with speed and overhauled Kookaburra 2 and placed a cover on that yacht, which held the length of the leg to the sea mark.
With yachts nominated in separate divisions Cool Change, Razamatazz 2 and Third Man sailed the short course on the day, while Enticer and Kookaburra 2 sailed the longer division 2 course.
Once Enticer turned at the sea mark she picked up speed on a close hauled reach and quickly left the fleet behind. Enticer completed almost ¾ of the second leg before the next yacht completed the first leg. Enticer completed the div 2 course of 13 nautical miles before some of the Div 1 fleet completed the shorter course.
On the short course Cool Change maintained its lead over the larger Razamatazz 2 for the first triangle of the division course before surrendering its lead to Razamatazz 2 over the final two legs after the triangle, while in the same division Third Man found she couldn’t make way in the very light airs and for a while found herself sailing backwards along the course before finding breeze and resuming her chase of the other yachts.
About 40 minutes into the race, the wind changed from the very light Sou South Easterly, in which the race started, to a more respectable Easterly breeze filling in from the East at around 8 – 10 knots, making for more enjoyable sailing but it changed the run on the first leg to a faster close hauled reach.
The third leg saw a questionable port cross of Cool Change by Kookaburra 2 which allowed Kookaburra 2 to overtake Cool Change, but which also appeared to cause Cool Change to slightly change course, a cross which could easily have ended up in the protest room. Cool Change is definitely “owed one” by Kookaburra 2.
On the water, short course yachts Razamatazz 2 and Cool Change crossed the finish line ahead of Enticer, while Third Man finished well ahead of Kookaburra 2 which was last across the line.
After adjustments were made to equalize the distance sailed, Enticer was a clear winner, ahead Kookaburra 2, with Cool Change taking third place.
With 2026 ocean series results of 1, 2, 1, Enticer now holds a healthy series lead over Kookaburra 2 with Razamatazz 2 in third position.
By Andrew WALMSLEY
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