The Grant Thornton Shorthaul Pointscore restarted on Saturday 17 January 2009 with the inaugural running of the Botany Bay return race.
Originally intended to be first run as part of the 2007/8 season but cancelled that year due to heavy weather, the Botany Bay race replaces the former Port Hacking “one way” trip and also comprises Race 3 of the Passage Race Series. This year the fleet faced strong southerly winds of over 20 knots and a 3 metre swell as it bashed down the coast to the relative calm of Botany Bay before turning around and surfing back to finish in Rushcutters Bay.
Paul Billingham & Pete McGee’s Elusive had the best of the start and was first out of the heads but was soon overhauled by Scott and Troy Dillon’s Beneteau 44.7 Cmist which revelled in the heavy conditions. Those boats which elected to head straight offshore had the best of the weather with the seastate far rougher and confused as the waters shallowed towards the shore. Several boats suffered damage with Lu Lu Belle and Kurraka retiring and Elusive nursing a holed main for two-thirds of the race.
The “race within a race” was that which developed between Jon Short & Miles Bastick’s Farr 34, MRX, and Robert Hunt’s Adams 10 Attitude. These two similar sized but very differently built boats duelled from the start and were never far apart, with Attitude gaining the upper hand in the later stages to beat its rival by three minutes.
But it was Greg Mason and Barb Maunsell’s Sine Wave which narrowly beat Attitude on PHS by just 25 seconds on corrected time to take the overall honours in PHS division with Cmist taking third. MRX did enough in unfavourable conditions for such a light boat to beat Cmist in IRC division from Zephyr.
This was the probably the toughest race and conditions the Shorthaul fleet has encountered in recent years and is testimony to the variety of races and conditions the Grant Thornton Shorthaul Series provides. Tribute must go to the smallest boat to complete the race – in just under seven hours Paul O’Connell’s Katinka stuck with it to pick up 6 valuable points in the Autumn Pointscore.
The fleet takes a break for a couple of weeks before returning for the final night race of the series on Friday 6 February. – Paul Billingham
