THE Sussex Inlet and Basin Yacht Club (SIBYC) have sailed in to the new year with the first race on Thursday, January 2.
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Five boats managed to recover from the New Year celebrations and the crews had their hangovers blown away by a fresh southerly breeze.
A little more recovery time, some tempting blue skies and a steady 10 knot east to south-east breeze saw nine boats take to the water for the first inside course of 2014 on Saturday.
A scratch start to the windward-leeward race had most of the boats hit the line together with some brave souls trying their luck at the pin end on a port tack. Some close quarter combat up the first work, with skippers trying to decide which side of the course would give them the edge had most of the fleet rounding the top mark in close order.
The first run downwind started to spread the boats a little with Lowana (Silver, Gary and Ken), Pass the Port (Paul, Lynne and Rhonda) and Southern Cross (Greg, Lynne and Captain Billy) leading the charge in a three-way tussle that would go all the way to the line.
The following group saw Backchat (Steve, Mark and Daniel), HooRoo (Andy, Lou and Joel), Bay Blues (John and Steve) and Fly Navy Too (Greg and Rhonda) fight it out.
Rounding out the fleet were Wings (Hawkeye and his mutinous crew) and sailing solo Steve Ings on the newly corporately sponsored White Dove.
Some subtle wind shifts and the occasional mystery wind “hole” kept everybody on their toes searching for the best lines, especially upwind.
Lowana held on to take line honours just ahead of Southern Cross with Pass the Port across the line in third. Next was Backchat across the line in fourth that would secure then a commendable handicap win. In close order Fly Navy Too, then Bay Blues and HooRoo rounded out the finishers with Wings and White Dove deciding on an early return to the bar.
PBH results: first Backchat, second Fly Navy Too, third HooRoo, fourth Lowana, fifth Bay Blues, sixth Pass the Port, seventh Southern Cross and a did not finish for Wings and White Dove.
Next Thursday is a short course race, on Friday (weather permitting) is twilight sailing and on Saturday an outside course (scratch and triangle).
