Last Thursday’s weather briefing by Paul Eldrid was not what skippers and crews wanted to hear and sadly his forecast was right on the money with extremely light conditions and countless “holes” in the breeze.

Watching Dave Davenport’s powerful TP52 “Crush” stagger to the finish line at less than 2 knots in almost no breeze, it was impossible not to feel some of the crew’s pain.  Incredibly, despite the light weather Crush still managed to complete the journey in a bit over 26 hours to take out line honours and first place on IRC ahead of early leader Al Fresco, which looks likely to be first on PHS handicap.

While Crush was suffering in champion Bay, Weapon of Choice was storming up the course in good breeze, but on the approach to the channel, it too ran out of wind. She finished strongly to be second over the line.

Division 2 competition was fierce.  Atomic Blonde and Wyuna traded positions constantly with Lyn Powell’s Fourth Dimension hanging on grimly as the trio headed north. At 10:45pm on Sunday, all three were line astern in the deepwater channel, Atomic Blonde leading Wyuna with and Fourth Dimension just behind. After 200 miles of sailing in such conditions, this was going down to the wire. In the sprint for the line, Atomic Blonde claimed division 2 line honours and with it, the IRC trophy. ahead of Fourth Dimension. Wyuna looks good for the PHS division 2 trophy.

Race officials scampered to the phones just before 9pm on Sunday when a “man overboard” alarm was triggered on one of the yachts.  It turned out to be a false alarm and a good test of our incident management procedures.

Geraldton yachts should enjoy a couple of days of light weather for the Lobster Pot Series, but on Thursday a frontal system is expected to bring winds well over 30 knots so there probably won’t be a lot of sailing until Saturday brings a return to lighter conditions.

Words and images by Bernie Kaaks.