Yacht racing triumphantly returned to Hillarys Yacht Club on Sunday October 15 after a winter of discontent due to abandoned races through lack of wind. A brisk easterly gusting to 18 knots set all three divisions on their way to Little, a downwind leg ideal to blow out the cobwebs of spinnaker handling before beating back to the Sorrento mark.

Sailing the same course (F2) albeit starting 5 minutes apart, division three set off first with division two and then one in hot pursuit with kites flying. The short east-west legs in the strong easterly tested the crews with beats and alternate kite runs before a final beat back to the finish line in a fading breeze.

Setting the fastest time for the course in 1:09:35 for third place in division three (no spinnaker) was Whispering Jack (Bruce Bradford) with Kind of Blue (Boyd Timler) second and a fast finishing Hard Evidence (Peter Hibberd) first on handicap.

A competitive fleet of seven in division two produced some close racing with the fastest time and first place decided by less than a minute. A diversion tactic of announcing at the briefing that he wouldn’t be using his spinnaker paid off for Captain Tim Tucker as Show Me won on handicap from Helga (Mark Taylor) by just 30 seconds with Pinta (Ray Murphy) third. Covert Operation (Bart Brouwer) held off Farrouk (Des and Gail Riley) for fastest time by 37 seconds. Unfortunately for Covert Operation, with a handicap similar to that of Wild Oats XI, they finished well out of it on handicap but scored a pleasing compensation result on the ORC rating.

Four yachts in division two have an ORC rating and Covert Operation was 24 seconds ahead of Volant (John Ball, Frank Hagemann, Kevin Meta and Emille Janssen) with Show Me and Farrouk third and fourth.

With fastest time and first place in division one Sophia (Bruce Utting) also had the second fastest time around the course 1:17:55. Perle was second on handicap ahead of Mulberry (Mark Pitt) in the three-boat fleet. Interestingly the third fastest time around the course was former division one boat Hard Evidence in 1:20:38.

Photos courtesy of Rob James, thanks Rob.

John Bird