Our second race of the season for our Performance Boating Sales Jeanneau Cup looked like being another classic summer N’Easter, for this the Seven Islands race all the way down the harbour, under the bridge to Balmain and return, though the breeze softened on the return, which gave an advantage to the faster yachts in the fleet.
The pursuit style of racing adds an extra flavour as the slower boats start first and are therefore constantly pushing to stay ahead of the faster yachts closing from behind. The enclosed waters of the upper harbour mean that there are a lot of tacks and tactics involved to make it interesting and keep crews on their toes.
The Sun Odyssey 349’s found the conditions favourable and only Mike Gallagher’s Sun Odyssey 409 managed to storm through the fleet under masthead spinnaker and then pick them off on the return. However, Peter McClelland never gave up and pushed his Sun Fast 37 “Macscap” all the way only to finish just 7 seconds outside of the podium with Michael Smith on his 45DS “The Cure” not far behind.
All in all a great days sailing and a lot of fun.
Results:
1st “Galan” Sun Odyssey 409 Mike Gallagher
2nd “Sanity” Sun Odyssey 349 Eric Gonzales
3rd “Arawai” Sun Odyssey 349 Derek Minahane, Kirk Henzlik & Adam Hollaway
The final race of the series takes place on April the 29th, and for those interested we will also have Jeanneau yachts taking part on the MHYC Gosford Challenge event on the Australia Day long weekend. See this link for details.
The Jeanneau Rendezvous for this season is to take place on Sydney Harbour with yachts overnighting in Darling harbour if they choose. It will take place on Saturday February the 24th with the briefing at the Sydney Yacht Squadron, and we need confirmation of numbers ASAP, so if you haven’t already responded and intend to participate please contact us now at info@performanceboating.com.au