Strong southerly winds gusting to 35 knots and rising seas off Sydney Heads forced the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron to conduct Saturday’s Short Ocean Point Score race within the Harbour.
Even inshore, the windy conditions damaged yachts in the offshore divisions, while two Etchells were dismasted in gusts close to 30 knots.
The race was the second of the season for the RSYS Offshore Division and also the opening event on the CYCA Short Ocean Point Score (SOPS) and Ocean Point Score (OPS) calendar, with the RSYS conducting the race.
Zephyr, James Connell and Alex Brandon’s Farr 1020, notched up its second win in the RSYS Offshore Division, and has also lodged a protest that some yachts in the fleet failed to round Shark Island, one of the marks of the inshore course.
Subsequently, 11 boats have so far retired from the race, including the CYCA’s SOPS and OPS and the RSYS Offshore Division results and are listed as RAF (retired after finish).
The Squadron’s Race Management Officer Rob Ridley elected to race the fleet inshore after assessing the weather conditions off the Heads,
“We sent the mark laying boat out to sea about an hour and a half before the scheduled start and with wind gusts of 34 knots and rising seas they recommended against racing offshore,” Ridley said from aboard the committee boat Gitana. “Even within the Harbour we were consistently recording 26 to 27 knots.”
The SOPS and OPS fleet, which included the RSYS Offshore Division, then raced on Alternative Harbour course 14, starting north of Shark Island and racing between Manly, Shark Island and Clark Island, to finish in Watson’s Bay.
Zephyr provisionally placed first in the RSYS Offshore Division under both IRC and PHS handicaps. However, with Alan and Lyn Husband’s Bavaria 42 Limelight and Tim Cox’s J35 Soundtrack now listed RAF, provisional third place has gone to King Billy, Phil and Elesa Bennett’s Jarkan 38.
In PHS, Zephyr placed first with King Billy moving up to second place following the other retirements.
Zephyr also placed third in the IRC Division 3 of the SOPS overall fleet, but results are still provisional with the protest listed for hearing on Wednesday evening.
The CYCA’s provisional results now place Zephyr third to Two Can (Steve Tucker and Stephen Teudt) and Stormy Petrel (Kevin O’Shea) in PHS and second to Stormy Petrel in IRC.
The two Etchells dismasted were Carabella IV (Matthew McCann), which lost its rig near Bradley’s Head before the RSYS harbour racing began, and Roulette (Mark Johnson) which was dismasted during the race.
The Dragon and Yngling classes did not race on Saturday, but the Etchells and harbour handicap divisions did race, although with reduced fleets. In Division 1, first place in line and handicap went Charles Curran’s 60-footer Sydney.
peter_campbell@bigpond.com
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