April 26/27 was a great weekend for sailing when Batemans Bay Sailing Club hosted the 2025 d’Albora Batemans Bay Marina Regatta. This is BBSC’s big event of the year. Sailors came from Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and all over south east NSW to get some real ocean sailing in at this traditional season concluding event.
There were 54 boats entered including dinghies, catamarans, trailerable yachts and sportsboats. There were strong fleets in the Lightweight Sharpie, Laser Radial/ILCA 6 and Elliott 5.9 classes. On Saturday a shifty 5 to 10 knot south easterly breeze made for some tactical sailing during the two races which were completed after a delayed start. Race officer Phil Yeomans and his trusty race management crew set an even start line and a true course. In the light conditions, Yeomans sensibly shortened the first race to one lap. The wind increased a little for the second race enabling a full race to be completed in the limited daylight hours available at this time of the year.
Sunday provided a complete contrast with a big southerly blowing. Yeomans set the ideal mildly pin end biased start Iine which encouraged the starting fleets to spread out down the line. There were plenty of fast rides and capsizes during the two races but no significant gear damage until later, when the mast of one of the trailerable yachts had an unfortunate encounter with a tree at the Hanging Rock boat ramp.
In the Lightweight Sharpie class, regular participants Todd Curry, Hayden Sellers and Brad Curry scored a close series win. It all came down to a single placing in the last race. In the Elliotts “La La Land” (Paul Cohen and Steven Cartwright) did enough on Sunday to hold off “Tropic Thunder” (David Smith and Alan Graham), which won the last two races. The Laser (ILCA 6) results featured a podium of legends with Rick Longbottom winning from Lyndall Patterson and Martin Linsley.
Classes with less than 5 entries were grouped together to form yardstick divisions. The big dinghies division results featured a clear series win to 505 sailors Daniel Keys and Daniel Roos. Tasar sailors Ian and Naomi Taylor came through for the overall win in the smaller dinghies division.
Of the local sailors Ben Woolnough sailed his Taipan 4.9 to victory in the catamarans division, with Eden and Stephen McKibbon in third place sailing their Hobie 18. Allan Rees and Peter Cole won the trailerable yacht division aboard their Windrush ahead of Jack Egan’s beautifully restored Payne 5.5 “Windswept”. David Holt did well hanging in with the Laser legends to finish fourth. BBSC commodore Simon Dunlop finished 6th in the Lasers. Lachlan Brown teamed up with champion sailors Rob Douglass and Matt Craig to finish second in the sportsboat division.
It all happened thanks to a large team of volunteers from Batemans Bay Sailing Club and Batemans Bay Sailability. The weather gods also played their part on Sunday as the forecast rain held off until after everyone was ashore. Full results are up on the BBSC website www.bbsc.org.au.
Lachlan Brown
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