The keelboat races from Hillarys to Mindarie and the return on Sunday, March 17, were the final two races of the eight-race ocean series of the 2023/24 season at HYC.

Starting a little earlier than usual at 0930 the eight boat fleet of division 3 began in a light westerly breeze requiring many tacks to reach the first mark Little. Six boats in division 2 followed by five in division 1 at five minute intervals benefitted by the breeze beginning to build and once around Little set their spinnakers for the run back to Cow Rocks. The tight reach up the coast saw many head out to go west of Burns Beach rock whilst others took the shallower more direct route inside the rock.

Despite the light breeze at the start Bruce Bradford’s Whispering Jack set a cracking pace in division 1 to set fastest time but was hotly pursued by Bad Habits (Ian Holder) and Mulberry (Mark Pitt) finishing less than a minute apart. On handicap Bad Habits took the honours from Mulberry with Whispering Jack third. The scene was set for the highly anticipated return race as to who would prevail given the trophy would be based on the results of both races.

In division 2 Bart Brouwer’s Covert Operation won line honours by more than six minutes but had to settle for second place on handicap to Farrouk (Des and Gail Riley) who had taken the inside passage and kept their big symmetric kite driving them to the finish line. It was a close tussle between Volant (Emille Janssen, John Ball, Frank Hagemann and Kevin Meta) and Helga (Mark Taylor) for third place with Volant prevailing by seven seconds. Once again the scene was set for an enthralling return race.

Lamotrek (John Akers) was the fastest of the division 3 fleet and he too had to settle for second place on handicap to Resolute (Damian and Kerry Martin) by less than a minute with Hard Evidence (Peter Hibberd) just 12 seconds further adrift in third place. The expectation was that the trophy would go to one of these three boats after the return race decider.

After refuelling with food and drink at the Boat and enjoying the St Patrick’s Day celebrations, the delayed start for at 1400 was finally underway, with the rabbit boat, Show Me, heading west on a port tack for two minutes. To start well, one had to cross behind the rabbit boat as close as possible and begin the long beat back to Hillarys in the sea breeze.

Unfortunately, a couple of boats didn’t cross in the two minutes behind Show Me, and before she tacked over onto starboard, a DNS occurred. One boat retired after catching the rabbit. The much anticipated division 1 race was robbed of Mulberry and Bad Habits, division 2 lost Volant and division 3 lost Resolute.

It was a quick return race in the 15-knot sea breeze with Whispering Jack first and fastest in division 1 with Circa (Martin Eyer) second and Perle third. Combined result: Whispering Jack first.

Farrouk was right on the tail of Covert Operation for line honours and won narrowly on handicap from Helga with Show Me (Tim Tucker) third. With two wins, Farrouk was first overall in division 2.

In stark contrast to the first race, Seachange, a Delphia 40, excelled beating to windward in the strong breeze to record the second fastest time of the whole fleet and first and fastest in division 3. Racing again after the cruise to Geographe Bay, Mimosa (Tony Brooke) also enjoyed the strong breeze for second place with Hard Evidence third. The quick run home by Seachange (Hugh Burton, David Boyd, John Gregory and Cass Castalanelli) was enough to secure the combined result, pipping Hard Evidence by seconds on total corrected time.

John Bird