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The annual Warri Cup race, also known as the Chris Taylor Memorial race, was sailed in near perfect conditions on Sunday 14 April, with a strong fleet of 21 boats competing. The race course involved a 30 nautical mile race from Pioneer Bay around Langford Reef, which is located just to the south of Hayman Island. With the wind from the south-east, this allowed for a competitive but enjoyable race for all types of yachts.
The fleet was split into 3 divisions, with the non-spinnaker division first away. 10 boats competed in this division, ranging from a 47-foot cruiser, Mon Jouet, through to a 20-foot trailable yacht, Norbert G, with the majority of the fleet around 40 feet in length. The race out and back was largely uneventful, with the breeze hovering around 18 – 20 knots, which encouraged many in the fleet to reduce sail by reefing. First home was Mon Jouet (Michael Butler), with Twister (Kevin Fogarty) and Riff Raff (Dan White) not far behind. It was great to see Symbiosis (Anne Ross) mixing it mid fleet as they got to learn about competing in their first boat. Although the first boats home completed the course in three and a half hours, it took the last boats over 5 hours to complete the course. On corrected time, Riff Raff took the honours, with Norbert G (Ghigo Gasalini) second and Mon Jouet just 1 second back in third.
The spinnaker division started 5 minutes later with 5 regular WSC boats competing for bragging rights. While the wind was perfect for a fast spinnaker run, the direction made it unsuitable to fly a spinnaker, although Bobby’s Girl (Mark Beale) did have a brief attempt before abandoning the idea. This meant that the boats were all on equal terms, with Smooth Criminal (Iyas Shaheen) first home, with Bobby’s Girl two minutes after. The corrected time results were the same as the line honours results, with Smooth Criminal first, Bobby’s Girl second and Reignition (Charles Wallis) third.
The multi hull division saw 5 boats on the starting line, however Endless Summer (Tony Mahood) retired soon after with equipment damage. The fastest boat around the course was G’nome (Terry Archer), with Incognito (Brent Ireland) second and It’s All Good (Rick Burnup) third. The smallest boat in the fleet, Malfunction (Mal Ward), completed the course with a few equipment issues, but managed to take the corrected time win by just 1 second over G’nome after almost 4 hours of racing.
Full results are available at https://app.sailsys.com.au/club/85/profile?tab=results.
Contributed with thanks to Ross Chisholm.
