A Clear sky, a nice 16 kt breeze and ½M sea, what more could you ask for? We had a little trouble fitting the course in since the establishment of the clearance zone either side of the shipping channel. Both the 1^st and 2^nd starts were hotly contested but generally clear except for one individual recall on the first start.  Generally, yachts stayed in deeper water or the center of the course for the first windward work. Kites popped out for the reaching legs looking good and the leaders were soon back to the windward mark which had been moved to accommodate  a small shift from 330°M to 340°.
 
As the leaders approached it was cat, mouse and cover, but CALM, the new TP52 of Willow and GA and Slotty was  first around. Just 20 secs later was FLIRT (Chris Dare), and XLR8 (Ray Shaw). Phil Simpfendorfer's new Elliot 44 VELOCE was having a good initial outing being just ahead of EXTASEA (Paul Buchholz) and RUSH (John Paterson). INXS (Rob Sill) was the first 'B' div around well ahead of ALIBI (Denis Hambleton), GIENAH (Rod Miller) and THE SECRETARY (George Shaw), a position she held right to the finish. CHALLENGE (Lou Abrahams) led the Sydney 38s and had an interesting mark rounding with WICKED (Mike & Mark Welsh) with SIERRA CHAINSAW (P,M & A Mollinson) and 38° SOUTH (John Chatham) keeping it interesting.
 
Moving the mark must have been spot-on as the next run was pretty square. More breeze had come in, mainly 20 kts with occasional gusts to 25. From here on, the fun started as many tried sailing very square with big kites and full main. Roundups enough when your camera batteries are flat but also very spectacular. Fortunately, there was not much sea. A curious thing about the day was a reluctance to reef with many yachts on the next works sailing on their ear. Combine this with a reluctance to let sails out for the mark rounding provided views of more stalled rudders (and some keels) than for a long time.

CALM and INSX took the guns for their respective divisions for a great days racing.-

Robin Hewitt