Despite a small fleet to contest the third day of racing in the North Coast Series due to the departure the day before of several yachts participating in the Bunbury-Geographe Bay cruise, it was still a close, competitive competition in a 15-knot westerly.

Mark Taylor positioned Alibi as close to Mullaloo beach as he dare for an east-west course and a long windward leg out to the reef. Starting divisions 1 & 3 together, and in the absence of Mimosa (Tony Brooke), it was a close battle between Sophia (Bruce Utting) and Perle with the lead changing several times upwind on the two laps. Opting for winging the headie, Sophia started each downwind leg with a minute lead but Perle, with their pink spinnaker, closed the gap to just 22 and 26 seconds respectively in each race as they crossed the finish line. On handicap the positions were reversed.

In division two, Farrouk (Des and Gail Riley), Blue Chip (Keith and Deborah Fisk) and Covert Operation (Bart Brouwer) were seemingly in a race of their own out in front with Volant (Emille Janssen), Show Me (Tim Tucker) and Feeling Free (Alan Peacham-ORSSC) fighting it out to close the gap. In each race it was three colourful spinnakers urging the boats to the finish line with Farrouk prevailing by less than a minute both times with Blue Chip and Covert Operation crossing just behind. The points were shared on handicap with Blue Chip equal first and second, Farrouk, equal first and first, Volant third in the first race and Covert Operation third in the second race.

Y-Knot started at 10am, as the handbook states, thought skipper Stuart Marks, as he led the division three fleet away early, causing great surprise on Perle (div 1) to find Y-Knot in front at the top mark. Rob Bills on Catabatic wasn’t taken in by the unusual tactic and went on to be first and fastest in both races whilst Intuition (Marc Carpenter) was second in both. Stuart made amends with a third place in race two.

Many thanks to the start/finish team of Marshall Fox, Rob Gouldsmith, Louise Harvey, Dee Treen, Laraine Brindle and Mark Taylor on Alibi. Thank you also to the RIB teams from Mimosa - Andy, Roger, Graeme and Alia. It was an excellent course, with a perfect downwind set.


John Bird