Catamaran Sail Report - 2 April 2016

This week around twelve keen catamaran sailors came down to a lovely warm 29 degrees day with WSW breeze starting out around 9 to 14 knot mark (with reportedly up to 19 knot gusts c/o BOM Albion park) and dropping off to around 4 knots (and I think less) at times later in the day. This week was Point Score 21 and Championship 7 for both large and small cats. There was a large contingent of Trailor Sailors (TY'S) and with this week being the final weekend of the juniors it was decided to do a round the lake race. John and Amelia Richardson doing the honours on the response boat. This week start line out front of the club house, 1st mark port rounding a couple hundred metres up wind between the club house and Goose berry Island, next mark starboard rounding near the entrance at Windang, then port rounding over towards Koonawarra, port rounding at Oak Flats the all the way back to the reef port rounding then back to “X” in front of the western end of the breakwater to finish in front of the club house. Tony Zahra on his maricat “White Wave” putting in a request for a forward hand was able to pick up Tom Caroline who was very happy for the opportunity as was one of his siblings on Ian Richardson's Sharpie “Space Monkies”. With a good turn out we had 4 starts, small cats division 3 and large cats division 4. All the small cats got away well on starboard heading south then tacking west to make the 1st mark. Then a long work heading over to the lakes entrance at Windang. Hot Pepper able to keep a high line and make this mark pretty much on the lay line without having to tack. A nice strength breeze allowing the catamaran sailors to get out on trapeze. At this mark Hot Pepper kept in touch well. Dark Horse was in front but got a knock when tacking to the mark allowing Hot Pepper to slip through. By this time the large cats had already started to catch up and pass the small cats. At this point in small cats White Wave was 1st around the Windang mark leading the way. Hot Pepper holding a high line was able to keep above the disturbed air of some of the other boats and made good ground to the Koonawarra buoy. Billyo just able to sneak past on the windward side. The breeze fluctuated several times so you ended up going out and in off the wire a few times. The last broad reach from Koonawarra down to Oak Flats had similar fluctuating wind conditions. A number of the juniors on TY's armed with water balloons able to pepper some of the other sailors with water bombs. Tony Sanderson on Groove Thing in particular had a bit of a surprise when gently sailing past getting bombarded. On the way back from Oak flats to back over to the reef the wind dropped to only a couple of knots with the occasional stronger puff. This challenged all involved. With the predicted wind shift from a SW to a more SE and possibly some tidal assistance, a number chose to head over toward Windang and be able to get a clean run down to the reef. Billyo and Hot Pepper choosing to head towards Gooseberry Island and at times was able to point directly towards the reef with the SW breeze swings. The light winds making it slow going however out in the middle of the lake it was even slower with what appeared to be a big hole in the breeze. Billyo and Hot Pepper getting a better run to the reef and to the finish line. With the faster large cats four (4) finishing closely together within a minute or two of each other. They must have escaped the lull suffered by the rest as they finished a fair way ahead. Billyo leading the small cats home. Even being stranded with no breeze out in the middle of the Lake White Wave showed it’s class coming in second place (yardstick corrected) followed by an elated Hot Pepper. Next came Playtime then Dark Horse and Groove Thing who also had a neck to neck tussle to the line with only seconds separating them as did Blue Tongue and Chesha Cat.
Finish times were as follows:

General:
1. Only 2 weeks of sailing left.
2. Reminder large cats championship 3 has been rescheduled to next week 9th of April 2016.