In a building but manageable northerly, the fleet set out for the 3 scheduled short course heats to kick off the Spring Series. As it turned out, the northerly built rapidly leaving the fleet scattered, battered and bruised!
A few hardy sailors did manage to complete the course for race 1, including Chris Myers sailing a Pacer single-handed, Colin Franke and Alexander Jurovic (despite 3 capsizes). Heats 2 and 3 were then abandonned.
Confusion reigned in Division 1 with no one really sure which of the four competitors (Steve Cross and Lynn Dugay in the Hobie 18, James Wiersbowski in an A-Class, Adam & Joshua Smith in the Hobie 16 and Kristian and Ollie Willand in the Hobie 20) actually finsihed the course - if any! Steve and Lynn did have a couple of swims and Adam & Josh pulled off a spectacular capsize including the difficult 'full somersault from trapeze head first in the boom' manoeuver by the skipper!
There was also some carnage in the monohulls with Wendy Wilson pulling out, Will Palmer having his traveller ripped out of the boat and Bryan Hill deciding discretion was the better part of valour and calmly navigating his Sabre safely back to shore.
As evidenced in the graphic, showing minimum, average and maximum wind speed each minute of the race, the wind did hit 33 knots so in the end it was good to see everyone get back to shore safely.
Last Modified on 30/10/2015 10:08