Golden weekend for Brett Young

The skipper of Hi-Flyer Brett Young was quietly confident he’d do well giving the light conditions for the Halls head ocean race to Mandurah last Saturday.

Thirty three yachts started the fifty nautical mile race in a light and patchy sea breeze which didn’t get any stronger than fifteen knots during the course of the day. On board Hi-Flyer and armed with a great crew including tacticians Kingsley Piesse and Dave McReady , Brett said that they picked some good windshifts. With the right shape of hull for light airs, the yacht got up a momentum and just kept going. New sails and a recent antifouling job on the hull just added towards the victory. Before getting the boat a couple of seasons ago, Brett was racing on his soling - Odds and ends.

Crossing the line in fourth position, fifteen minutes behind line honours winner Syrenka, Brett Young won first in both YAH and IRC handicaps. Second in YAH was last year ‘s Sydney to Hobart competitor Courtesan (Philip Childs) followed by Battlestar (Isabel Law) third. IRC second was Courtesan again, and Ninety Seven ( Chris Glossop) third.

In division 2, the new S&S 34 Constellation sailed by Mike Finn won first in IRC in front of Impulse (Lance Woods) and Bad Habits (Ian Holder) third. In YAH, Mike Harvey was delighted to win first on Cinnabar and put it down to good crew work, a good start and trying to keep up with his main opposition Impulse. Cinnabar is a Peye and Holman UFO 34’, the English version of the S&S 34. She was built in 1979 for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race but actually never competed. Mike used to do a lot of offshore races and was keen to win another Mandurah race, especially because the last time the boat won, Kaye Risely was skippering! There is nothing better than a challenge to keep Mike going!

Second in division 2 YAH was Traffic Jam (Peter Kennington) who managed to keep up with Without Fear until Coventry Reef, followed by Constellation (Mike Finn) third. Without Fear, sailed by John Moore, and one of the three Mandurah yachts taking part in the race, won line honours for the division two.

The Point Robert Return race on Sunday was even lighter with northerly winds at the start and for a while it was a bit of a raffle for the ones who got a bit of breeze, while the others got stuck in a hole before the late mild sea breeze came in. After that, it was spinnaker work all the way to the finish line at South Mole.

Line honours in division one went to Ausmaid (Trevor Taylor) who also won first in IRC followed by Hi-Flyer Brett Young second and Ninety Seven (Chris Glossop ) third. In YAH, to finish the weekend nicely, Brett Young scored another first (and overall combined first), followed by Sagacious ( Clodagh Irwin) second and Aquila (Roger Passmore) third.

Line honours in division two and first in YAH went to Mandurah boat Rangitoto (Chris Bucktin), with Traffic Jam second and Constellation (Mike Finn) third. In IRC handicap, Constellation scored again with first place in front of Bad Habits (Ian Holder) second and East Fremantle Yacht Club yacht Storm Rider (Luke Rees) third.

Battlestar in her last race as a representative of FSC	Ross Swanson’s Syrenka – the main trouble is…
Hi-Flyer taking Courtesan and Ausmaid at Challenger Passage	Peter Blaxell took some of the Club’s junior members to Mandurah on Pegasus II