Newly elected Mayor of the City of Joondalup and Patron, Albert Jacob opened the new season for Hillarys Yacht Club on Sunday. 

Commodore Neil Harrison welcomed special guests, flag officers, visitors, sponsors and families before outlining the many success stories of the past year in the angling, diving, power and sailing sections. The stand-out highlight was the success of Todd Giraudo and David White who sailed Kraken into second place in the Melbourne to Osaka double-handed race in March this year. The dinghy section conducted a very successful Easter Regatta which included coaching by Olympic Gold medallist Belinda Stowell, Marcus Fisk was 9^th in the Laser Nationals and a large number of the junior sailors were invited to join a development squad, Westsail. Reaching out to the community the club conducted learn to sail courses at various levels beginning with the “come and try sailing” day held in the Hillarys Marina for 250 participants.

The traditional sail-past and salute with a pirate theme saw sail and power boats look as though they came straight from the set of Pirates of the Caribbean. Best dressed boat was shared by Sheer Magic for sail and Sure Shot for power.

Several yachts from the Ocean Reef Sea Sports Club joined in with the keelboats for the afternoon’s racing of the Commodore’s Cup.  The division one fleet swelled to 16 yachts with the visitors and in a challenging 15 knot sou-wester Whispering Jack prevailed with emerging young, talented sailor Chelsea Bradford at the helm. There was success for Alan Peacham skippering Feelin Free in division two and Steve Okeefe on Comfortably Numb in division three.

Presentations for dinghy and keelboat sailors and best-dressed boat winners concluded a very successful opening day.

John Bird

Results

Commodores Cup - Keelboats, Sunday, 7^th October 2018.

Div1:
1. Whispering Jack (B Bradford)
2. and Fastest Lithium (W Pitcher)
3. Sally Malay (I Walker)

Div2:
1. Feelin Free (A Peacham)
2. Volant (E Janssen K Scheckel F Hagemann K Meta)
3. Panache (G & Rita James)
Fastest: Covert Operation (G Atkinson & Bart Brouwer)

Div3: 
1. Comfortably Numb (S Okeefe)
2. Anastasia (L Brindle)
3. Catabatic (R Bills)

Commodores Cup - Dinghies, Sunday, 7th October 2018

Optimist Green:
1. Lily's Pad (L Wild)
2. Swift (S O Vitales-Jones)
3. Horse Power (I Charly)

Optimist Open:
1. Sea Ya (B Graham)
2. Swamp Rat (O Tucker)
3. Max (M Goudeau)

Laser 4.7:
1. Maxed Out (B Taylor)
2. Mr Potato Head (A Gardner)
3. Aurora (A Tucker)

Mixed Fleet:
1. Recalcitrant (H Dymond)
2. Out of the Blue (G Mallison)
3. Club Boat (P Mallison)

125:
1. Sweet Shiraz (A & M Schmidt).