Eighteen HYC keelboats took on the challenge of a brisk southerly breeze that varied from 15 to 22 knots and shifted wildly at times from ESE to SSW in the third consistency race of the summer season. For the unwary, there was potential chaos with round-ups, spinnakers flapping, and near-misses when gusts hit.

In division one Mimosa (Tony Brooke) revelled in the strong wind conditions to record another win, by a minute over Whispering Jack (Bruce Bradford) who was fastest around the course by more than six minutes. Sophia (Bruce Utting) missed second place by just a second and had to settle for third. Deckchairs Overboard (Neil Harrison) took home a bottle of wine for first over the start line.

Geoff James on Panache moved up a place from the previous consistency race to win in division two ahead of Farrouk (Des and Gail Riley) and Blue Chip (Keith and Deborah Fisk) after they had a great battle on the last spinnaker leg. Covert Operation (Bart Brouwer) was fastest by just 14 seconds over Farrouk, and also was first over the start line. Great to see Alan Peacham on Feelin free with OS 711 on the sail, chasing Show Me (Tim Tucker) to the finish line.

A pair of greyhounds of division three showed their pedigree in Lamotrek (John Akers) and La Premiere (Ken and Des Luplau), the latter winning from the fastest but second-placed Lamotrek. Kind of Blue (Boyd Timler) just had the measure of Intuition (Marc Carpenter) yet again, this time for third place, albeit by two seconds. Marc scored the bottle of wine, however, for first over the start line.

Many thanks to the start-management team of Rob Gouldsmith, Louise Harvey, Sandy Grant and Dee Treen of ORSSC; Marshall for results and the committee for rehashing the handicaps and embracing Top Yacht.

The next consistency race, following next week’s NCS, is on Sunday Dec 1st and is the Chris Grant Memorial Race, so dig out those Hawaiian shirts.

John Bird