Race 4 of the Short Haul series was the first of the night harbour races in the summer season. With the race starting at 1830 hours on Friday evening, a fleet of 17 boats made it to the start line in between Shark Island and Point Piper.

For those teams on the start line, they were able to mingle with many of the grand-prix offshore racing yachts which were lining up to compete in the Newcastle Bass Island Yacht Race, being the third race in the Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore Series.

With the pre-summer rain squalls plaguing Sydney for many days, competitors were lucky enough to be able to get underway under the setting sun with cloudy but dry skies.
One team which was able to make the most of the harbour race was Ian Guanaria’s team aboard One More-No More.

“I was surprised we didn’t get rained on. It seems to happen a bit, rains during the day and then when we go out to race it stops. Maybe we are just lucky!” Said Guanaria.

“We always enjoy the night races, you have a clear harbour with very little other boats to contend with, we also find these races a bit more exciting that the longer short offshore reaching races. They tend to suit the longer waterline boats, so we aren’t able to keep up as easily.”

With the wind filling in from the east the Race Committee sent the fleet to undertake course two which led teams down the harbour to Junction Bell, then back up and loop twice around Shark and Clark Islands to then finish in Rushcutters Bay.

“We had a great little battle with a few of the Sydney 36s and were very pleased to come out with the win,” said Ian.

“We will try to do as many of the races as we can throughout the season. We timed it well with this race, we had flown in from Chicago that morning, unpacked, then went straight down to the club to do the race.”

Other divisional winners included Robert and Pat Easton’s In Cahoots which was first in PHS Div4.

Full results can be found at the CYCA results page with images on the CYCA Facebook page.