A light sea breeze ensured close, tactical racing, between eight yachts which made up the club’s fleet.

Race officer Dave Magill and his crew aboard the committee boat Clarence the Clocker set a familiar boat end favoured start and started the race at 11am.

The course started near Snapper Island and went to the top mark at Yellow Rock, around the marine park middle mark to a leeward mark set near Snapper Island, then to Yellow Rock before a run to the finish near the island. 

Apostrophe, skippered by Rob Currall, got a good start and led around the top mark with Andrew Bain aboard Wishful Thinking and Lachlan Brown on Accolade just behind. 

Accolade gained the lead on the leg to the middle mark with superior reaching speed. 

On the next leg, which had turned in to a run, Xanthia, skippered by James Gardiner, did well with her tennis court-sized asymmetrical spinnaker. 

She rounded the leeward mark just ahead of Accolade with Apostrophe overlapped outside of her. 

Unfortunately Xanthia failed to keep clear of Apostrophe as she came past to leeward which resulted in slight contact between the boats. 

As per the rules, Xanthia exonerated herself by doing a 720-degree turn at the earliest opportunity.

Apostrophe, whose co-owner David McNichol was acting as bowman, kept a close cover on Accolade to the top mark and rounded just ahead. 

Accolade and Wishful Thinking then headed off on a port gybe. 

This would normally be the way to go in a backing sea breeze. 

However, the breeze veered instead and Apostrophe, which had initially looked out it on starboard gybe, was able to gybe onto port with the shift and sail straight to the finish line. 

Xanthia, the Tony Sutton skippered Avior and to a certain extent Hotspur, steered by John Drummond, were also able to take advantage of the wind shift to make up ground on the final leg.

On PHS it was a big win to Xanthia from Hotspur and Avior. 

On AMS calculation, Avior won from Hotspur and Apostrophe. 

The two division two boats which started, Tradewind and Richard Dunne’s Vital Spark had a cruisey sail rather than electing to finish the course. 

Full results are available on the club’s website at www.bbsc.org.au. 

Keelboat sailing is on this Saturday from 11am. 

There will be a pre-race meeting at 9am at the Batemans Bay marina where anyone interested in joining the club can go and be introduced to a crew to sail with on the day.