HYC has maintained a strong and successful presence in offshore racing with four boats, Martin Eyer’s C&C 115 ‘Circa’, Mark Taylor’s Viking 30 Helga, Marks Pitt’s Beneteau First 35 ‘Mulberry’, and Roric Smith’s Pogo 12.5 Surfer Rosa competing in last weekend’s opening race of the new Ocean Racing WA (ORWA) Siska Series with both Surfer Rosa and Mulberry returning successful results in their respective divisions.

Named after the late George Law, owner of the well-known Peterson 45 ‘Battlestar’, the Fremantle Sailing Club (FSC) hosted a race that had competitors racing from Fremantle anti-clockwise around Rottnest Island back to North Cottesloe before finishing at Fremantle. Weather conditions provided glorious sailing with a fast race on flat water under sunny skies. The race started in moderate to strong gusty easterlies that died in the middle of the day, challenging the fleet with several sail changes to keep their boats moving. After the midday lull, the moderate south easterlies returned, powering the fleet through to the finish. As in offshore racing, while some of the faster, performance boats completed the 48 nm race in just over 5 hours, the back markers finished after sunset after more than 9 hours of racing.

The long reach out to and around the northern side of Rottnest Island suited the planning boats, with Surfer Rosa achieving 3rd place in Div 1 PHF in their first offshore race, showing they haven’t lost anything after a year’s hiatus. ‘Mulberry’ is developing a solid crew and carried their recent strong Valmadre winter form to earn excellent results with 1st place in Division 2 PHF and 2nd place in Div 2 IRC. Circa was pleased to be on the start line, having put out an urgent call for crew on the eve of the race. Unfortunately, Helga, competing in their second offshore season, ran afoul of the new strictly enforced Gage Roads deepwater channel exclusion zone and was forced to withdraw from the race along with a couple of others. Helga, nevertheless, completed the course.

The new ORWA offshore racing season has been reduced to nine races in three series, the Short Haul series consisting of five single day races including HYC’s own Pot of Gold Race and the Blue Water series consisting of four overnight races. This year the famed Siska trophy will be contested over only six races consisting of the four blue water races and two short haul races.

Ray Murphy