Race 3 BPYC Spring Series - Spinnakers both ways

The BPYC Race 3 kicked off at midday on Sunday 25 September 2022, another glorious spring day in Sydney. The forecast was for light winds so some eyebrows were raised when the starter announced Course 3, Manly, our favourite but also one of longest courses. Would the fleet be bobbing in the water off Nielsen Park with limp sails while the beers got warm? Not so as it turned out. The fleet once more consisted of Starfire on scratch, followed by Conquista and G-Whizz (5 and 6 minutes behind) while Blue Sky was looking to roll up the field from behind.

At the start the wind was light south west around 4 to 6 knots from the start for about 45 minutes to an hour perhaps slightly favouring the boats starting earlier. In such conditions it wasn’t long before the colourful sails came out with all boats except G-Whizz enjoying a long spinnaker run heading up into Manly.  

Upon rounding the buoys at Manly West and East the fleet was still quite well spaced out in the order of the start. The BOM had predicted a wind shift, which duly occurred just as the leading boats started their return leg. The standard afternoon Sydney Nor-Easter sea breeze kicked in with wind building to 10-12 knots. Starfire and Conquista both quickly readied their kites again so Blue Sky, still flying a spinnaker in the south westerly was watching boats coming the other way from the north, also under spinnaker - pretty interesting conditions. The angle of the wind on the way to the East Channel marker favoured the asymmetrical spinnaker on Startfire on this leg and she began to pull away from the competition. Conquista flew its large symmetrical spinnaker very shy when suddenly, with a nasty ripping sound, the cloth tore all the way. The usual chaos ensued but thankfully the full complement of crew on board Conquista managed to take the shreds down with reasonable swiftness and only a modicum of (very) flowery language before she was on her way again.

The scene was set for another showdown between the two leading boats, who rounded the final mark at Shark Island at the same time. Once more the wind was straight behind, Starfire went for speed and popped the asymmetrical spinnaker again but had to take a longer course to stay with the wind whereas Conquista, deprived of the (now shredded) kite, chose to run before the wind with their large headsail poled out on the most direct route back to Clark Island. In the end Conquista made it over the finish line only a few boat lengths ahead of Starfire, with G-Whizz and Blue Sky following in due course.

In all the course only took two hours to complete so well done starters for sending us to Manly (and crews for getting back) – the beer certainly was still cold for the usual yarn and race post-mortem in the pub.

Race 4 – the Allan Rintoul Trophy – is scheduled for Sunday 9 October at 13:00 (the first race in daylight saving time) – we hope to see you there.