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Batemans Bay ANZAC Regatta


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Great bit of water to sail on; I love the ocean swells that occasionally roll through.

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

The clubhouse is down Hanging Rock Place, a few minutes drive away.

Typical numbers have been around 20 big cats and 10 14' cats, with 60-80 boats in total. Be great to see more there this year!

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Yes I will be sailing  my Windy down there this year for the first time.

I have been to the regatta with the Sharpie fleet in previous years but have never sailed in it.

Both daughters will be there again this year for the Sharpie States so I will be bringing my bulkhead  and entering rather than just being the taxi driver.

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  • 1 month later...

The website link above includes option to enter online for $60. Entry on the day is $80, or $40 per day.
The online questions are a bit weird; boat make, boat model? Na mate, it's a full size one!
Portsmouth yardstick? Is that some way of measuring if your mouth is wide enough to park a boat in?

Cats with yardstick 84 or over are Division 8. Not sure why the processing power of a moden computer can't determine that for itself, given it's just asked the type of boat and yarstick. Anyhoo...

With 8 divisions, waiting for starts can take longer than the race itself, but this can be a great opportunity to literally sail rings around the fleet! Great fun.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There was a vast fleet of big cats; Hobie 16s, 18s, Tigers, and Taipans. Some looked fantastic; well trimmed, high-speed boats with crews on trapeze. Others looked spectacular in a different way, such as the reaching Hobie 16 that suddenly dipped the leeward bow and flipped it over. Wow! In about 1/2 a second they went from cruising nicely along to being inverted.
Only 4 small cats; Humungus II and Pointed Reply sailed cat-rigged foam-hulled Maricats off a yardstick of 94. I sailed on old glass-hulled sloop-rigged Maricat "Slippery When Wet" 2-up with a yardstick of 92; WTF? On Koonawarra yardsticks that would be the other way around. Not that it would have affected our result; we sucked. Dad was there on his Nacra 14 square "Toccata in Sea".
Starting with the big cats introduced a fair bit of chaos, especially when the start line was so biased you couldn't cross it on port tack, and the stream of big cats took about 4 minutes to eventually get out of the way.
I performed the most bizarre capsize ever. We had no problem making good progress in the heavy winds; jib tight, traveller out to the footstraps, mainsheet tight, and basically steer to keep the windward hull just kissing the waves. In big gusts I eased the main and pinched a little. Our combined body mass and heavy, water-filled hulls probably helped. Then coming into the top mark, a big wind shift prompted us to pinch, then the bloody thing started to go into irons, so I pulled the rudders, eased the main and moved back, but those banana hulls just insisted on pointing into the wind. I figured we might as well back it around and tack, then suddenly the nose lifted and the boat did a backwards roll! I guess the wind got under the tramp, the water sloshed to the back of the hulls and the crew & I fell backwards at precisely the wrong moment.
Both our Mari and Dad's Nacra came back with broken sail battens, which was fairly light damage considering the wind was reported to be gusting to 35 knots.

In Sunday's light, choppy conditions, our 2-up Mari pointed low and went slow, so we finished a distant last. With a bit more breeze, pinching to luff the jib constantly and tacking on the shifts we did better in race 2, to at least keep the others in sight. A huge clump of Neptune's Necklace (seaweed) caught Toccata's foils which slowed him for a while and then stalled it into irons, which helped us get ahead of him on corrected time.
Humungus sailed well up into the big cat fleet, showing the boat's true potential. Pointed Reply put up a good chase, keeping the pressure on.
The final scores were Humungus 1,1; Pointed Reply 2,2; Slippery When Wet 4,3 and Toccata in Sea 3,4.
So I like to say we came equal 3rd. WIth only 4 boats that's polite way saying last.

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You and your crew went well from what I seen Tony.All the Maricats were having a good go in a Big Cat fleet that looked spectacular on the water.

After checking the weather and being told that I was taking the 4yo son fishing on Saturday,I was happy to sail the 2 Sunday races so I helped the daughters rig their Sharpie "MAINIAC" and after helping launch I headed off to the local jetty.While fishing we could see the fleet getting smashed in the gale and returned to the rigging area to see the Sharpie in the park already..They had a few swims and the eldest daughter had a gashed chin with blood everywhere all over the boat..Spent Sat arvo back at Shellharbour Hosp with 3 stitches and Super-glue holding the wound.So on Sunday instead of sailing the Windrush I was out there as a sub for the daughter sailing in the Sharpie for the final 2 legs of the NSW State Titles..

Great regatta for the Maricats to support with plenty of room for all, hope they get a dozen Maris next year.The Maricat Assoc should make this Regatta part of their State Title Series next season as it really is one of the States great Mixed Fleet Regattas.

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