The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s BMW Sydney Winter Series 2005 has ended on a sunny and warm day for the 72 women skippers and their crews who contested the Closing Day Ladies Race on Sydney Harbour.

It was a fitting finale for one of the biggest Winter Series ever, attracting 205 entries and regular Sunday fleets of 160 boats and more for the pointscore races.

A fleet of 28 boats contested the Spinner Division 1 with the Volvo 60, Andrew Short Marine,  helmed by Kate Dowining,  sailing through the fleet to win narrowly from Austmark (Melanie Godfrey) and Black Snake (Natalie Walton).

Another big fleet contested the Spinnaker Division 2 with Lauren Calder at the helm of Quickie, holding off the back-marker Larrikin (Sue Elliott),  third going to Tommy (Jo Dyer).  Sail-World.com’s editor, Di Pearson,  finished a close fourth at the helm of Attitude.

Smaller fleets contested the two Non-Spinnaker Divisions,  with Panacia (Sharon O’Conner) winning Division 1 from Utopia (Pam Fagence) and Sextant (Lynne Smith).  

In Non-Spinnaker Division 2,  the classic 6-metre class yacht Erica J, steered by Cathie Macleod,  won a hard-fought race from A Bientot, which did not list the “driver”, third place going to Froth & Bubble (Terresa Parrish).