With storms lingering before the summer sea breezes fill in, the Mount Gay Ocean Pointscore and Short Haul Pointscore sailors were met with strong and gusty conditions on Sydney Harbour.

The tough conditions only deterred a few teams and there was a good turnout in all divisions. With the Race Committee constantly monitoring the weather observations, the decision was made to shorten the Lion Island race and keep all the boats within the shelter of Sydney Harbour.

“The decision was made to run the Harbour course instead of the Lion Island course due to a gale-force warning offshore, most of our 16 starters were happy with that as we ended up getting upwards of 30 knots from the south,” said Race Officer Steve Kidson.

“We started off Point Piper and ran three laps around the harbour: Point Piper to Manly, then to Shark Island, back to Manly, then to Clark Island, back to Manly then home”

With the southerly weather conditions getting up close to 30 knots at times the teams were able to get around the harbour course in record time. The racing was dominated by the larger of the boats in the fleet, Bob Steel’s former Rolex Sydney Hobart winning yacht Quest, always a top contender, taking first place in all three divisions.

“Quest was the gun-boat on the day, managing about 50 minutes per lap, and opening up around a half-mile to a mile lead on the rest of the competitors. But the whole fleet were great to watch, flying down the course under spinnaker and battling back, they really set the Harbour alight,” said Kidson, watching all the action from the start boat.

“Julian Farren-Price’s Cookson 50 About Time also sailed a great race, ending up in a TP52 sandwich by managing to hold off Matthew Short’s TP52 Highfield Caringbah to claim second place on IRC.”

Other Ocean Pointscore divisional winners included; Mathew Short’s Highfield Caringbah – PHS Div1 and Dennis Cooper’s Amante – PHS Div2.

The full results are available at the CYCA Results page.