Sailing Report - Coastal 3 Two Bays Classic
The Bengelo Property Services Broulee Race was finally held on Saturday 8/3/08 on the third attempt. Saturday was an excellent day for sailing with fine weather and a honking nor’easter. 9 boats faced the starters Peter Connell and Terry Paton aboard the mighty “Cape Fear” at noon. At the time a light northerly was blowing making for an interesting downwind start for the first leg to Black Rock. Several yachts got their spinnakers up straight away. The sea breeze came in shortly after which made the leg to Black Rock a tight reach. The yachts with spinnakers up were suddenly overpowered and heading in the wrong direction. Some furious foredeck work ensued with spinnakers doused and headsails set.
The reaching conditions suited the Joe Adams designed boats “Black Velvet” and “Wishful Thinking” which got an early break on the field. Commodore Bain and his crew aboard “Wishful Thinking” rounded Black Rock in the lead and quickly threw up the kite for the leg to Burrewarra Point and hence South Broulee. “Black Velvet” was looking good under some suspiciously new looking Doyle sails. “Apostrophe” came through to be third around the South Broulee mark after a slow start, although they were well behind on corrected time. “Fractious” did well under her asymmetrical spinnaker on the broad reach to Burrewarra Point but lost ground on the ensuing square run to Broulee.
The yachts then worked out around Broulee Island to another mark off North Broulee and were hard on the wind all the way back to Black Rock before a power reach across the Bay to a finish line off Casey’s Beach. “Ghoster” showed some unsuspected pointing ability to lay Black Rock from Burrewarra Point in one tack. Everyone enjoyed the final reach which was quick but wet for the crews. Terry Paton assumed a perch on Observation Head to record the finishing times. The leading yachts finished in just over three hours for the 22 nautical mile course. Thanks must go to race sponsor Simon Louth and also to Dennis Arthur for laying the Broulee rounding marks.
Results. Performance Handicap – 1st Wishful Thinking (Andrew Bain), 2nd Black Velvet (Matty Walsh), 3rd Fractious (Tim Devlin)
IRC – 1st Black Velvet, 2nd Wishful Thinking, 3rd Ghoster (Lachlan Brown)
