First race season 2012/13 at MHYC

Last Saturday was the first pointscore race of the season, with a good rollup in all divisions including the new #4 Division of fortnightly competitors. The breeze was out of the South West, however given the shifty nature of the breeze, a Westerly course was set. This gave the competitors a chance to do triangles as well as windward returns with a bit of Middle Head mystique thrown in.

With only one OCS on the day, all fleets were surprisingly well behaved on the startline. There was one incident however, Ken Krone aboard Kestral had a MOB in the last boatlength prior to his start. I was looking down the line and missed it, all I saw was his mainsheet being eased to slow the boat down. Once notified by the start team, I radioed Tender3 on the pin for them to come and assist. Ken arrived shortly after and picked him up and then retiring from the race. I look forward to seeing his report on the incident.

The start team then moved to watch the bottom mark for a few laps then moved on to be in position at Balmoral for the finish, this also gave Melissa the opportunity to take photos from a different direction.

The final issue on the day for the start team was the rescue of a distressed sailboarder. We had picked up all of the marks and were returning to MHYC when we saw a hand waving at us. The sailboarder had come out of Balmoral and was over come by exhaustion and the cold. We brought him onboard Hugh S George and took him in to the inner line of moorings at Balmoral for a short paddle ashore.

Photos taken by Melissa can be seen on both the DeckHardware and MHYC Facebook pages.