by Meryl Simpson

Light winds greeted the unusually small fleet of 13 Jervis Bay Cruising Yacht Club boats that took to the water for the 3rd race of the Vincentia Newsagency Summer Series and 8th race of the Club Championship.

The starting line was quite chaotic with all boats choosing the starboard end of the line and several boats jostling others for their advantage at the start. Light air made positioning even more important with some getting left in dirty air and having to make early tacks to find fresh breeze. Cougar, Splinter, Wahoo and Arabesque all found the lifts they were after and began to leave the others behind.

The first spinnaker run was extremely hot in the light 5 knot breeze but from that point on the wind began to lift to almost 10 knots on the final leg. Light air really tests a skipper's ability to pick wind lifts and knocks and the crews ability to finely tune the sails. Tony Byrne's Arabesque was able to hold their spinnaker along the full length of the leg to Huskisson and left much of the trailing fleet behind. However, they were never able to get near Mark Tobin's Cougar or Denis Godrey's Wahoo in Division 1 and with the variable conditions many of the back markers were able to catch up.

Division 2 was dominated by the strong performance of Ken Dryburgh's Rock Hopper with it's lovely new set of sails as well as a creditable effort  by one of the clubs long term members, Hubert Notter in Teco who travels all the way from Crookwell near Goulburn to race.

The final results are as follows:

Line Honours:

Div. 1.
1st Cougar
2nd Wahoo
3rd Arabesque

Div. 2
1st Sea Change
2nd Rock Hopper
3rd Sas Sea

Regatta Handicap:

Div. 1
1st Arabesque
2nd Cougar
3rd Taste n Try

Div. 2
1st Rock Hopper
2nd Sea Change
3rd Teco

Performance Handicap:

Div. 1
1st Arabesque
2nd Dalliance
3rd Splinter

Div. 2
1st Rock Hopper
2nd Teco
3rd Sea Change