A gusty nor’easter sorted the old salts from the cadets in Port Macquarie Sailing Club’s 4th Handicap Start race of the season held on Sunday.
Six monohulls and the same number of catamarans launched into the start of the runout tide and a fresh 15 knot wind with gusts recorded up to 22 knots. Less than half of the fleet completed the event.
First starters led off with 24 minutes head start over Frank O’Rourke on Turbo which was the nominated scratch boat for the day. By the end of the first lap, several capsizes were entertaining spectators and three monohulls erred on the side of safety and withdrew leaving Jeff Walsh in Serenity, Mitch Dawson in Impetuous and Steve Couch in Lazybuoy fighting it out for the remaining two laps. A second downwind leg and some more capsizes were enough to retire Lazybuoy, leaving Serenity to take the win. Impetuous sailed well and fought on to take second place. In addition to Lazybouy, Tony Walker in Deep Purple, Martina Holt in Spellbound and Terry Howard in Flying Dragon did not finish.
In the catamaran division, Scott Witchard on Hummer was not immune to the accidental swim, but recovered quickly to keep in front of Jack Corthals on Crackerjack who was quickly making up ground, along with Tony Kuhn on Stella who finished third. Turbo, unfortunately, stripped the outer sheath off the jib sheet at the start of the last lap and was forced to retire amid some uncharitable cheers from one of the rental barbecue boats. Stuart Symons on Rainbow also did not finish missing his last lap.
Next Sunday is the final club event for 2022 - Race 8 - starting at 12 noon and followed by a Christmas barbecue. Grady McNee is rostered on duty.
