9:25 AM Sat 13 Mar 2010 GMT
And what a glorious way to do it. Sandringham Yacht Club hosted Day Six of the Club Marine Series on Melbourne's Port Phillip today. It was all about the Keeping Cancer at Bay fundraiser for Challenge, who support kids with cancer. In the end, it was smiles all around as everyone got out there to assist this marvellous charity go about their work.
Over on the Western side of the Bay, the Division Zero and One boats set about tackling their course to 165degrees over 1.45 nautical miles. Given the very light breezes that only just made double digits as it all finished up, the Race Officer, David Leroy, was '.happy to get a race in. We had a lovely day with breeze wandering a little and so we moved the mark about 300metres to the left for the second work.'
Earlier on in the day, the Division Zero fleet got a shorter, two lap race in when the seabreeze was barely 5 knots. The course was a little shorter at 1.3nm and set to 175degrees.
It was a bit of a golden day for Goldfinger, who placed second in IRC for both races behind series leader and dominator, Cougar II. Phil Simpfendorfer's Veloce took third in both races. In the Event Handicap Category (EHC), it really was all gold at the top, with XLR8 and Veloce alternating who took which minor place in the two races of the day. EHC for the series is being lead by XLR8, but Cougar can still make a clean sweep, if they do really well in the next and final round.
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Division one is still and has always been completely owned by Executive Decision. They won both IRC and the Australian Measurement System (AMS) categories today. They do share some of the glory with Reverie and Lou Abrahams', Challenge, however. Lou and the crew did very well today with seconds in both IRC and AMS and were the first Division One boat around the first mark. Terry Hall's Archambault 35, Absolute, took third in both categories. EHC honours for the day went to Dark Energy, Nutcracker and Jazz Player, in that order.
The Royal Brighton Yacht Club ran the Division Two and Three course over on the Eastern part of the Bay, today. Like Sandringham, they too donated their race management time and costs to the Keeping Cancer at Bay cause. The Race Director of the day, Simon Dryden, said, 'Lovely day. The wind didn't quite get up to the expectation, however. A great battle for the finish of Division Two, with Godzilla, Apache and Bullet, the latter getting the gun. Just! In Division Three, the S80s seem to have a cracking day, racing closely.'
In the Club Marine Series Division Two to date, Surprise, Apache and Godzilla feature heavily in both IRC and the Australian Measurement categories. Today, Watermark II also jumped onto the podium with a first in AMS, a third in IRC and a second in the Event Handicap category.
Division Three of the Club Marine Series has effectively been the domain of Intrusion, Footloose, Double Malt, Firefox and Rhiannon, in the previous races. So it was great to see Mood Indigo get a second in the IRC category today and Nouannie get a third in both AMS and EHC. Take One got in for second in EHC and so adds a little cement to her third place in this category for the entire Club Marine Series of 2009/10.
The final round is on the 10th of April and is sure to be well contested as crews go about ensuring a season's work gets rewarded with the trophies.
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Certainly one of the happiest crews out on the water and they sail hard too. Close quarters today! - Club Marine Series - John Curnow
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www.orcv.org.au
by John Curnow
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