Audi Winter Series Winners Announced

The weather gods really turned it on for the final pointscore race of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Audi Winter Series, which wrapped up on Sydney Harbour last weekend in glorious sunshine, with a light east nor’east breeze midway through the day bringing the promise of spring.

Today’s race decided the winners across the 12 divisions. It was a difficult day, as Principal Race Officer, Denis Thompson said: "It was a pleasant sail for all at the beginning of the race and the end -- in the middle it got a bit hard.

"At the beginning of the start sequence, a light westerly of up to 10 knots was blowing; by the end of the sequence, it was four to five knots and then it was a glass out."

However, just as crews were relaxing into the sunny day, a lovely light east nor'easterly wind, averaging seven to eight knots came through, giving the fleet a pleasant spinnaker ride back up the Harbour on the shortened course Thompson had called for.

"A few got caught out in the glass out, and at 3.30pm, there were still three boats coming up the Harbour to finish," Thompson said.

A massive total of 184 boats entered the Audi Winter Series 2012 and many will be on the start line again for one final race next Sunday, the non-pointscore Ladies Day Race for the Chris Lee Trophy.

Overall division winners are: Duende (Damien Parkes) Division A1; Occasional Coarse Language 2 (Warwick Sherman) Division A2; Solahart-Rum Jungle (The Lost Boys Syndicate) Division B; Into the Mystic (Arthur Psaltis and Jon Ross) Division C; M (Steve Hatch) Division D; Shere Khan (Rod Gibbs) Division E; Attitude (Robert Hunt) Division F; Wild Blue Yonder (Terry Rhodes) Division G; Clewless? (Lachlan and Guy Irwin) Division H; Lahara II (Glenn Crane) Division J; and L’Eau Co (Grant Pollock) Division K.

Full results: http://www.cyca.com.au/sysfile/downloads/2012-winter/?key=5660