Batemans Bay Anzac Regatta April 21-22

[michaelobe007]

The annual Batemans Bay Anzac Regatta will be held on the weekend of April 21-22

For notice of race go to www.bbsc.org.au

Hopefully a few visiting Taipans & Maricats will add to the excitement

[hobie]

will be a few hobie 18`s and a hobie tiger,

[mozzie1724]

there should be one or two cat rigged taipans and maybe a nacra 430 from Mannering park

[tonyquoll]

Great fun, the biggest fleet I race in all season with 90 or boats. I especially like the occasional ocean swell that rolls through

We rig up at Corrigans Beach, where there are public toilets, BBQs and easy access to the water

The clubhouse is down Hanging Rock Place, a few minutes drive away. The allows proxies to sign off for their mates

beachfront cabins are great, affordable if shared. Don't leave your wetsuit outside to dry 'cause we had some stolen last year. No problems leaving the boats though

[Pointed Reply]

I have not made a firm decision on this yet.

Just seeing how other things fit.

A nice place to sail.

[Bridgehugger]

Bridgehugger

Yep, raining like hell down here at the moment but the weekend looks like a beauty.

Looks like plenty of catamarans this year, all of the above will be there.

Batemans Bay have 5 .9 Taipans, most of them will be there. There are 5 maricats,

they will be there. Hobie Tiger, Hobie 18, and various others.

99 boats last year in the regatta.

Water is still 22degrees, great regatta before the winter arrives.

Can pitch a tent at the clubhouse Hanging Rock sports centre.

If I can help with local knowledge. Rob 44712831 or 0401762915.

Be there.

Cheers Rob

[tonyquoll]

A landslide on the Kings Hwy made travel to Batemans Bay difficult for Canberra sailors, which probably combined with the crappy weather to reduce the fleet to 80boats. There were about 10 in the 14' cat division, and 20 or so fast cats.

After race 1, Ian, a Nacra430 skipper, commented "that was the worst race EVER!" A lot of cats were discouraged and didn't bother racing on sunday. A fleet of Cherubs never left the caravan park and presumably the skippers went off surfing instead.

The finish of race 1 was both particularly unusual and vexing. A 6knot incoming tide caught the finish buoy, as it motored westwards faster than some of the boats trying to get around it. Many of them touched the mark, or rather, it touched them as they attempted to sail past.

While that was happening, the wind swung from S to SW, boats further back in the fleet became advantaged. This head to dozens of boats in massive jam at the finish.

On Sunday, dark lines of cloud passed over, pushing decent 10 knot winds in front of them and drawing calm behind. Unfortunately the best wind occurred between races which died to crappy calm conditions mid-race.

I thought it ironic that everyone complained about the drifter conditions, but sat there drifting while waiting between races. I had a blast surfing the 1.5m swells on a flying westwards reach, or gybing back to jump over them going eastwards.

It was great spending the weekend with my Dad, and to see him take line honours in 2 races. He was leading the other but sailed into a hole and dropped way back. His yardstick dropped him down the fleet's results.

I enjoyed side-by-side racing with my close competitors; Dad on his Nacra 14square, Rod from Tumut's Maricat, and Adrian from Mannering Park Maricat sloop.

I got great starts, had a good read of the wind and wave patterns and had a fair bit of luck to win 2 races and take the division prize.

2nd was Adrian, and 3rd a Hobie Wave sailed by 2 junior sailors. They took advantage of a 100 yardstick, and being far enough back that they got way with taking a few shortcuts around the course. We decided not to tell the committee and allow them the prize as an encouragement award.

[tonyquoll]

PDF of all results: http://bbsc.org.au/resources/Anzac_Regatta_2012_Results.pdf

[michaelobe007]

Great to meet up with some of the names from Catsailor

Thanks again to Tony, Rod & Adrian for their encouragement

Lot of work to be done to get her up to speed

That's my excuse anyway

Though Rod's comment that it helps to be somewhere near the start line was way too accurate

Great to meet you guys

Michael

[tonyquoll]

Good onya Michael. Was great to see you there too.

They were very challenging conditions. We had to try and keep the sails working as they flapped around with the boat rocking in the chop. Very hard to monitor the wind direction and set the sail appropriately. Then there was navigating to the patches of faint breeze, factor in the tide, ride the 1.5m swells whenever possible, avoid the 80 other boats and get across that damned fast-moving finish line!

My approach at the starts was to be within 100m of the line, a bit upwind and out to one end. I was out of the way and had a good view of the previous classes starting, to see which end was favoured. I also picked out a boat that went left, and boat that went right, and watched who had the advantage when the crossed paths.

Come our turn, I headed for the line as soon as the previous fleet's gun went. That way I was definitely going to be there in time no matter if the wind dropped out in the meantime. In all 3 races it was strongly port-end favoured. 2 of them I thought going right was the go, and so made a port start. I was about 15seconds late, as I wanted to hit the line at speed but not risk being early. Room for improvement there.

Sunday morning I thought catching the swells up wind and heading left was the go, so went a starboard start, which provided a bonus of catching Rod on port. I was wary of the wind swinging even more left and making hard to cross the line, so went near the middle. Adrian nailed the port end on time and easily crossed ahead of me.

Things to practice; time how long it takes to sail to the line, so you can estimate how close /far way to be and when to go, go, GO! In fleet racing also need to be able to park stationary and hold a place right on the line. I'm still working on that one.

There were two tricks to finding the breeze. The lines of dark cloud were pushing the breeze in front of them, so I kept looking up and heading to the dark clouds. The other was to watch the water and boats ahead, to avoid calm holes.

The main thing is to have fun. Good to just catch the breeze, rides the swells, fly the hull and enjoy the experience.

[Pointed Reply]

Sailing is always better than working......

The landslip at Clyde Mt made it a challenge, 40km from BB then had to do a 205 km detour then home via Cooma !

After attending BBSC regatta for a few years you would think I would remember to take a paddle.

The boats had a good wash on the way to the start line on Saturday but when the wind died the 6knot current made life interesting.

I found a windless hole on the way to the start on Sunday and missed race one.

The best breeze of the day was between races, riding the long swells was fun.

We had some close battles between the 14ft cats across the weekend. Congratulations to Tony on another BBSC win..wait till next year !

Sailing in currents and tides in something that most lake and bay sailors don't get much practice at and it caught most of us, especially as the wind strength dropped.

Michael had his "new" Maricat out for the weekend. We passed on a few pointers on tuning his boat without basically spending any money, rudder alignment, jib bridle position and sheeting positions, rethread the main sheet, down haul position and a general tidy up to made sailing a Maricat safer and simpler and hopefully faster.