Jervis Bay, Cat Sailing & VSC At Their Best

An abundance of smiles, happy faces, kids having fun on the beach, great food and exhilarating sailing is what it was all about on Sunday. Surely the surprisingly good weather conditions contributed to those smiles on everyone's faces, sailors and beach gatherers, young and adults alike. Even Andrew came close to having a glimpse of a smile on his face, although not until after the sailing was over. Quinny and Rachael taking the gap at the start of race 2 and stealing Andrew's clean air may have had something to do with that. Helen and Dobbo were unquestioningly the duo on the water who had the most fun, even though they weren't the couple to beat. You can only do so much chatting Dobbo before it starts having an impact on your sailing!

Overall, the sailors were treated to excellent conditions with an all day long 10-15 knots Easterly. Of course some extra puffs and shifts, resulting in a few capsizes also (Rachael & James, Di). After lunch most of the sailors seemed more keen on spotting a whale in the middle of the race course rather than getting ready for race #3. Just as well Siebren, the race duty assistant for the day, had brought his fishing gear along on the start boat, stopping him from nagging his dad to get the races underway!

Race 3 was exhilarating and very fast paced, with Quinny and Rachael completing the two triangles and taking line honours in no more than 12 mins 34 secs, and with Mick & Patrick, Andrew & Georgii, Glen & Will not far behind. See the results, both Spring Handicap and overall Yardstick for more details. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say, from where I was standing the Hobie fleet looked like a glorious and rather thrilling spectacle, being a Taipan sailor that should say something. Lastly thank you Chemene and assisting ladies for serving a yummy lunch to us all.

Egbert

Hobie 16's Rule In The Seasons First Nor-easter

The first nor-easter of the season began light but strengthened to about 15 knots by the afternoon. 4 races were held with 8 sixteen's on the water and all had a blast particularly on the reach leg, thanks Dobbo. After teaming up for the last couple of weeks, John and Howard skippered their own boats and enjoyed a close battle on the water. Di and Julia showed great speed on the water taking line honours in race 4.

Andrew and Will claimed bragging rights over Mick and Patrick as the breeze strengthened and Peter visiting from Pittwater got the fleet thinking about the upcoming NSW state titles. So that leaves one question, where were the 18's and taipans?

Club Championship Starts

After a wash out of the first championship weekend, the club championship got underway in a sou-easterly breeze. Race 1 finished the way it started with Quinny first followed by Mick. Dobbo had a good race coming third. In race 2, James got a good start while Quinny dragged his arse in the cold water but after the first lap made the right decision to tack towards the beach and came through with the line honours just in front of Mick.

After taking another dip in the water on the way back to lunch, Quinny took another dip in the 3rd. The winter weight proving too much for his trapeze wire. James almost had the best start of the season but arrived early by 25 thousandths of a second. Race 4 was a quick single lapper with only 3 minutes across the entire fleet.

Blair

Pleasant Westerly

The halfway weekend of the spring series was 4 races in varying conditions. Races 1 and 2 were held in a 10-15kt westerly. Dobbo welcomed a new crew Julia to the sixteen in race 1 and the start boat crew nearly abandoned ship after James buried the bows on the finish line. In race 2 James got a great start and John, teaming up with Howard, decided to impersonate a teabag.

After lunch races 3 and 4 required a paddle out to the start line but then a light sou-westerly gave good racing while the V8 fans missed out. Egbert was happy with the start line all to himself for race 3 while the sixteen's were playing bumper boats. Rachael had taken the tiller for races 3 and 4 and took out line honours in the sixteen fleet in race 4. How often does James do this?

MB