Port Macquarie Sailing Club successfully defended the inter-club challenge at the weekend’s Booti Booti Cup on Wallis Lake at Forster.
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The first two races on Saturday were held under beautiful sunny skies with a lovely, easy north-easterly breeze.
Sunday’s first race was held in a difficult, light, shifty westerly.
By the time this race was completed, a strong wind warning forced further racing to be abandoned.
It was just in time, as many of the boats had capsizes on the way back across the lake to the clubhouse as the westerly started to squall in.
In the catamaran division Port Macquarie’s Frank O’Rourke on Dino was really on song to win every race, and so the division point score.
The Arrow Cats did well against a mixed fleet of mainly bigger cats, to take out the first five places.
The other Port Macquarie finishers were Tony Kuhn on Stella who was fourth and Kelly Miller on Hummer who was 16th out of the 20 boats after sailing only the first two of the four races.
In the monohull fleet, Port Macquarie’s Paul Robertson and Warren Sykes in their Tasar Slam Dunc took the division win with a second and first place, although Kelly Miller filled in for Warren on the Sunday after he suffered back problems.
The other Port Macquarie monohulls were fifth place Geoff Williams in his Laser Ocean Dreaming, and Simon and Elsa Gandy with Caitlyn Hicks in their Tasar Voyager who were seventh in the 12-boat fleet.
The MG14 NSW state titles were held concurrently with the Booti Booti Cup, and the new team of Steve Bohlsen and Scott Witchard in Splash Dance had their first attempt at sailing in a big MG14 fleet.
Disappointingly, they broke the rudder again (the third time in as many months) half way through the first race, forcing them to retire from this race and miss the next two races.
They had it welded overnight and managed to get a 23rd out of 30 boats in Sunday’s race.
The MG14 series was won by Phoenix ahead of Jet Stream, both from St George Sailing Club, with Nth Degree from Gosford third.
Next weekend is a double header, with race five of the summer series at 11am, a BBQ lunch, and the fifth club championship at 2pm. Ron Apps is rostered on duty.
