The Hillarys to Fremantle and return ocean races are two of the premier events in the keelboat racing calendar for HYC and the promise of excellent sailing and social events drew 18 boats and crews to the start line on Saturday 7th December.

Starting in a 12-knot ESE breeze, the long beat down to Gage Roads looked to be straightforward until the breeze began to wane, shifting back and forth, leaving boats struggling to make the turning mark. Once around the mark there was sufficient south in the breeze to try a kite heading to the coast and Campbell, but as the photo shows that was short-lived. Finally the sea breeze kicked in to 18 knots and punching into waves was on for the boats who weren’t already tied up at FSC, like Surfer Rosa (fastest) and Lithium.

In the division one fleet of nine yachts, after trading places for line honours several times, the Pogo 12.5, Surfer Rosa (Roric Smith) was first with the J122, Lithium (Wayne Pitcher) second. Circa (Martin Eyer) was third, with Mimosa (Tony Brooke) and Mulberry (Mark Pitt) the next two on corrected time, some 20 minutes behind third place.

In division two, although Covert Operation (Bart Brouwer) was fastest, Helga (Mark Taylor) was just five minutes behind, doing enough to secure a comfortable win on corrected time from Show Me (Tim Tucker) with Panache (Geoff James) in third place.

The Beneteau Oceanis 46, Kind of Blue (Boyd Timler), revelled in the stronger winds to record a first and fastest in division three with new owner of Tosca, Eugene Johnsen, enjoying a great race for second place, and in third place was Hugh de Vries on Donetes.

After sufficient rehydration, revelry and an innovative quiz featuring the talents of the MC, from which the Pinta team emerged victorious for the second year in a row, some crews retired for the night; others, well…

The late start of 1100 on Sunday morning for the return race suited those still recovering and allowed the early sea breeze to send yachts scampering and surfing northwards, under spinnaker for a thrilling ride home. The wind direction varied from about 193 to 197 degrees making the choice of a port pole (Perle), starboard (Covert Operation) or winging the headie (Mulberry) difficult whilst others worked the angles with asymmetric kites or jibs. Being on port, Perle arrived near to Beach only to find it abeam on starboard necessitating a radical gybing of only the mainsail to get across 50m before gybing the mainsail back. Wayne’s comment: “That could have been disastrous, man”. It could have been if Perle had lost the race.

Surfer Rosa was fastest, Mulberry second and Lithium third across the line but Perle, 10 minutes behind Surfer Rosa, was first on corrected time from Mulberry, 13 seconds adrift, with Seachange (Hugh Burton, Cass Castanelli, David Boyd and John Gregory) third.

Covert Operation had a great kite-run home, flying it to the finish line for fastest time and third place however the win went to Show Me ahead of Panache in division two.

Eugene Johnsen on Tosca went one better than on Saturday with a first and fastest whilst a sterling effort by Stelfred (Laraine Brindle) earned second place with Kind of Blue in third place.

Overall results for the combined places over both races saw Mulberry, Show Me and Tosca winners of the coveted trophies.

Many thanks to the start management teams of:
Saturday: Rob Gouldsmith, Sue Carter, Sandy Grant and Greg Lynch
Sunday: Rob, again, Gary Kaye and Greg, again.
Also thanks to Kind of Blue for being radio-contact safety boat and to FSC for their hospitality.

John Bird