As we get down to the business end of the season, just a few hardy Mirror crews arrived to the club for their weekly sail. There was a fresh and gusty NW blowing straight down Middle Harbour on to the rigging lawn. Always a bit confronting to the Balmoral crews who are used to rigging in the lee for most wind directions.
The wind was mostly 10-15kn with the occasional 20kn+ blast across the beach. The forecast was for the wind to ease in the afternoon but it was all too much for the crew of Firefly who mutinied and wanted out before the boat was even rigged. The crews of the other boats Molly M and Fast Glass were made of sterner stuff and keen to test their mettle and blow out the cobwebs of a dusty week of work.
The wind however, had other ideas. The boats got away to an even start, despite a pre-race capsize from Molly M and the boats made their way to the top mark as the wind steadily increased. The first downwind run had boats boats enjoying an exhilarating ride towards a bottom mark - that they never reached. An enormous gust passed across the club fleets, breaking masts in the Tasars and one Moth reaching 31.8kn in boat speed. Both Mirrors failed to come away unscathed with Molly M sustaining damage to the mainsail and Fast Glass bending a mast. The boats returned to the beach for a well earned drink on the club deck, with plenty of stories to tell and plans to do it all again next week.

Following a break in the sailing schedule due to Easter, this week’s report comes from guest reporter Breda Thatcher with edits from Tony Mandl.




In the absence on holiday leave of our narrator in chief Gavin I submit my race report.


On a day set for a lovely fair-weather sail and with the fleet diminished due to the school holidays it was left to the senior members to hold up the Mirror end. Three sets of red sails battled it out on the water.
Gavin has demanded a dramatic account from a day that seemed at first blush unlikely to provide very much drama.
Lewie and I can usually manufacture some on board tension due to someone sitting on a sheet at the critical moment, being in the wrong position and failing to move briskly or forgetting which mark we should be aiming for. Details of the ensuing frank exchanges are best kept in-boat for fear of scandalising the youngsters!
However we did have one exciting passage as we headed from mark 2 to mark 1 downwind.  The spinnaker was up(just) when suddenly the boat stared rocking violently and taking water as a huge shiny black motor cruiser roared past very close and very fast. As we struggled to stay upright and avoid jibing we were delighted to see another motor boat following hard on the heels of the menace with fellows in blue uniforms and full cop gear.
The big bully was pulled over and was being asked a few questions (hopefully also being breathalysed) as we sailed serenely on.
Apart from some close shaves with Steve in the Speigel who “starboard!”ed us a couple of times  the sailing was otherwise a lovely relaxed day on the water with conditions good for spinnaker practice (we chased Steve sailing solo down a leg with our spinnaker up and it seemed to make no difference at all to closing the gap!)
Hardly any moments of domestic friction at all!
Tony thoughtfully added Matt to the team for the day in the building NE but made a strategic error at an early stage (port hand start from the pin) from which they never recovered - so we didn’t exchange any on water sledges with them after the start. Tony did however test out the new spinnaker with encouraging results despite some self inflicted tangles at the first gybe.


We look forward to the last races of the season in continuing lovely conditions from the weather gods.