The Sirens of Rockingham lured some of the Hillarys racing fleet south for the Australia Day long weekend, leaving a fleet of 10 boats to celebrate Anne Boleyn’s wedding anniversary and sail the HYC Australia Day cup on January 25. (The Saturday was chosen to allow the rest of the weekend off; how Aussie is that?)

The Ukrainian coloured HYC windsock (whose president marked a birthday on Saturday) dispelled the promise of a westerly breeze to get the fleet reaching around the 10-mile course to Scarborough and back, with early indications of something more from the south west.

A combined fleet start was requested, with some boats over the start line and needing to return, leaving defending Club champion Show Me to win the start.

A couple of tacks to the west, then a more relaxing beat to Scarborough than last week, had the fleet promoting sailing to the beach crowds south of Sorrento. A kite run or goosewing brought the fleet home.

The seasoned offshore crew of Mulberry with Mark Pitt at the helm finished 15 minutes ahead of Sophia, also second on handicap, with Harrisons’ Deckchairs Overboard very kindly keeping out of the way of the “little boats” while gathering some sail training imagery. (On arguably the lowest definition video recorded since the moon landings; thank you, Tony.)

In Division 3, Rob Bills’ Catabatic romped around in the light airs to finish first and fastest. Although finishing 13 minutes behind La Premiere, Intuition squeezed out a 2nd place on
handicap by less than a minute.

In Division 2, Covert Operation, unable to deploy a spinnaker due to hardware failure, was relegated to 4th on handicap. Mark Taylor’s Helga, sailing with only two on board, finished 3rd across the line, but ahead of Farrouk on handicap. Farrouk celebrated Australia Day in the tradition of the animals on the Australian coat of arms who are incapable of walking backwards, dealing with an engine gearbox also incapable of going in reverse. With no going backwards from the start, the Show Me crew have now doubled the number of finish horns they’ve ever heard, to finish first and fastest.

Prospects are good for a quick run to Mindarie on Sunday for Ocean series race 5 and returning for race 6 which is also a race for ORC(c) championship points.


Tim Tucker


Above: Covert, Farrouk and Helga on the run from Scarborough

Above: The trifecta

Above Deckchairs Overboard

Above: The Show Me Code Zero wannabe