The annual Batemans Bay Sailing Club event involved two short races on Saturday and a long race on Sunday around a pentastar course.

Undergoing repairs, The Shed and Periwinkle were missing from the fleet, but were compensated for by the welcome return to racing of Totally Mild (Gus MacDonald) and Vital Spark (Richard Dunne).

A leg injury to a sailor on board Totally Mild forced the boat’s retirement early on Saturday.

Race officer Dave Magill and his trusty crew aboard the committee vessel, Clarence the Clocker, set a start line and course well aligned to the moderate easterly breeze.

The committee also went to the trouble of re-aligning the course between races when the breeze backed east-north-east.

The short course put the onus on crews to work quickly on their spinnaker sets.

Wishful Thinking, skippered by Andrew Bain, and Apostrophe resumed the battle at the leading edge of the fleet but Apostrophe came out on top by being able to run a little

deeper under its symmetrical spinnaker.

On Hotspur (Lachlan Brown) the crew was still recovering from the festive season.

A series of onboard snafus ensued and at one stage the boat was close to losing its spinnaker pole overboard.

The race on Sunday was delayed until the sea breeze filled in at about 11am, and the n the breeze increased throughout the day, which ensured a quick race.

Apostrophe, a light-air boat, led early in the race, and was

followed by Wishful Thinking and Hotspur.

On the reach into Chain Bay, Xanthia (James Gardiner) powered through on its big asymmetric spinnaker into third place, but then rounded the Tollgate Islands’ mark in the wrong direction and, later, had to retire from the race.

Hotspur also rounded the mark the wrong way but realised the mistake some minutes later and did a reround.

This gave Attitude (Simon Byrne) and Totally Mild the opportunity to overtake but both boats became overpowered when the breeze reached 20 knots.

Hotspur, which had changed to a number 3 genoa, overtook Totally Mild and was close to catching Attitude at the finish.

Meanwhile, Wishful Thinking ramped up in the strengthening breeze, especially on the reaching legs.

She overtook Apostrophe on the last leg to claim line honours and the race win on AMS.

At the other end of the fleet, Juicy Fruit (Peter Smith) hung in brilliantly to win the Sunday race on PHS.

Apostrophe’s very consistent performances assured overall victory on both PHS and AMS calculations.

For more information about the club, and the full results, see www.bbsc.org.au.