Racing started with 9 local and 3 metro sailors. Great to get entrants from Perth down, and  thanks to you for the effort made to get here.

The small fleet enabled running the regatta as a single fleet.

The wind started from the NE-ENE being variable at 5-12 knots.

Racing began at 10.30 after a welcome address from the Albany Radio Sailing Club president, Ian Hebiton. Ian borrowed a yacht for the weekend. Needed his hit of sailing for the weekend. Ian introduced the regatta PRO, Harold Keay who presented the prerace briefing.

Racing commenced with most sailing with A Rigs.  The racing was particularly competitive at the front end of the fleet with Geoff Oliver winning the first 4 races, and Adam and Ron Viney with Andrew  Doncon and Brian Schneider filling the top end finishers for the early part of the day.

Unfortunately Ron Viney had a fall in the middle of the day having to go to hospital for attention. It pans out that he broke his collar bone with some other bone damage in the shoulder.

Sailing resumed with the rest of the day presenting the Albany sea breeze, blowing from the East at 15-20 kts. A number of boats having to be dragged aside for repairs. The honours for this period were shared between Geoff Oliver and Adam Viney. At the close of sailing for the day Geoff had an 11 point lead over Adam, a handy lead for the local sailor.

Sunday was scheduled to be very light, 1 -5 kts from every direction of the compass, according to the weather forecast.

Sunday finally presented with a breeze starting in the west at 3-6 kts freshening to 10 kts on occasions. Course setting was hard with wild 45 degree wind shifts in the early part of the morning. The wind finally settling in the SW at 8 – 12 kts and finishing at around 15kts.  All in all, the breezes made for excellent sailing with lots of opportunities to use the shifts.

Ron Viney was not going to miss the opportunity to have a sail and with arm in a sling and sailed all races on the day. In addition to that he also managed to climb from around 10th position to finish in 4th. Ron left the day with a smile on his face.

Day 2 also saw a great recovery from Peter Bolt, who on the day before had to cope with a lot of breakages resulting in a lot of DNF and DNS finishes.

There were several local sailors who had never participated in a regatta before, their participation can only accelerated their sailing skills. It was especially good to see young sailor seeing the regatta through to get experience, Rohan had a couple of good race finishes which will help with confidence. Jeff Cass has to be happy with his achievements over the weekend having only recently taken up sailing the DF65 not having any sailing experience.  Brian Holman put in a consistent showing over the whole weekend with midfleet finishes. We also have to mention Ian Hebiton, he also had a lot of midfleet finishes, Ian enjoyed his sail, frustrating himself with a couple of finishes where he managed to tackle the finish line bouy. We also have to congratulate Brian Schneider for finishing 5th overall, the 2nd best finisher of the local sailors.

In the finish however congratulations to Geoff Oliver for his series win from Adam Viney from the Wanderers club and 3RD place going to Andrew Donkin from the Austin Lakes club

Pictured (L-R): Adam Viney 2nd, Andrew Donkin 3rd, Geoff Oliver 1st