Summer weather for Winter Series

On a day that was reminiscent of summer with balmy temperatures in the mid-20s, 112 yachts took to the start line for Race 1 of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Winter Series, which has been part of the club’s sailing calendar for over 65 years.

Despite the warm and sunny weather, Huey wasn’t so kind with a light west north-west breeze that fluctuated to the north-west, making Sydney Harbour look like a parking lot -- which is more typical of a Winter Series race.

Race Officer Robyn Morton sent the fleet spread across 13 divisions, on their respective course A after a 25 minute AP whilst waiting for the breeze to fill in.

For seasoned Winter Series campaigner Michael Selby and his X-412 Cyrene 3, being one of the last to start in his division may have just paid off as he came away with the Division C win. "The light airs at the start were a bit frustrating. As we were one of the last to start in our division, we managed to pick up a few wind shifts heading up to Manly and pulled back five of our competitors.

"We had a great tussle with Into the Mystic (Arthur Psaltis and Jon Ross) on our way back from the top mark. We managed to sneak past them at Lady Bay and caught the filling breeze off Steele Point to come home strongly," Selby added. Cadenza (Gunner Tuisk’s Farr 50) finished second with One for The Road (Kym Butler’s Archambault 40) third.

Jonathon Green’s Melges 32 Crusader took Division E honours from Tigger (Robert Briet’s Flying Tiger) and Krakatoa (Don Young’s Young Super 30).

Robert Hunt took to the helm of the Beneteau 40.7 L ’Attitude that he, Jon Short and Miles Bastick purchased in March, and came away with the Division J2 win from fellow Breakfast Club chef Niel Burling and his Hanse 40 Baltic Lady with CYCA Rear Commodore Arthur Lane’s Inkonkoni third.

Both Burling and Hunt are just two of the coordinators of the Breakfast Club -- a long-standing tradition of the Winter Series. The Breakfast Club, a band of passionate volunteers, provide crews with a traditional bbq breakfast before each day’s racing. All proceeds from Breakfast Club sales are used to purchase items for the club house to benefit members.

The CYCA Winter Series pointscore continues next week across nine spinnaker, three non-spinnaker divisions and a Sydney 38OD division. The pointscore series consists of 10 races, with up to three drops allowed, if all ten races are completed. The race scheduled for Sunday 9 June will be a non-pointscore race.

For full CYCA Winter Series results go to http://www.cyca.com.au/sysfile/downloads/2013winter/index.htm

Photos: Sailpix