While most of Port Macquarie was celebrating Valentines Day on Sunday, Port Macquarie Sailing Club members were embracing wind and wave for Race 3 of the Summer Series and the 5^th Club Championship Race. Another gusty southerly hinted at a repeat performance of last week’s challenging conditions. For the first race of the day, winds were 10-12 knots with gusts in the range of 16-18 knots.

Martina Holt in Spellbound found all the right gusts to finish first on yardstick in the monohull division followed by Simon Gandy sailing solo in Flying Fish. Terry Howard crossed next in Ratz, closely followed by Roger Shipton in Zazoo, Stuart Symons and Andrew Copeland in Elmo, and eventually Steve Couch in Lazybuoy, after a short detour to start another lap instead of crossing the finish line.

Handicap results saw Ratz in front, followed by Zazoo, Spellbound, Elmo, Flying Fish and Lazybuoy.

In the catamaran division, only Frank O’Rourke on Dino finished the race. Tony Kuhn on Stella did not finish after some “excitement” with the rudder crossbar.

In the junior division, a closely fought race saw Elsa Gandy and Zoe Copeland in Sail Fish take both the yardstick and handicap win over Ziggy Ewart and Kieran Copeland in Intrepid.

While Tony drove home to get spare parts, the rest of the fleet enjoyed a barbecue lunch and watched the winds increase to about 15 knots. Later during the race, some bullets were recorded up to 22 knots making for a great afternoon for spectators, as the gusts wildly shifted direction around houses and trees.

Zazoo took the yardstick win in the monohull division followed by Ratz, and Elmo. Tony Walker in Deep Purple, Spellbound and Flying Fish did not finish.

The catamaran division had a carbon-copy of the first race of the day with Dino taking the win, and Stella, being towed back to the beach with duplicate rudder crossbar problems.

In the junior division, Intrepid pulled out all stops with some blistering kite runs in the difficult conditions to take the win on both yardstick and handicap over Sail Fish.

Next week will be Summer Series Race 4 starting at 2pm. Simon Gandy is rostered on duty.

Steve Couch – Publicity Officer

0417 667 879

publicityofficerpmsc@gmail.com