With a near perfect scorecard with three wins and a second over four races, ‘Le Billet’ ended with his scorecard on five points, a sweet victory for 25 time Coffs veteran. “We’re absolutely delighted we got there, that’s the one we were looking for. Everything worked well, the boat performed beautifully, the crew worked extremely well together, there were no breakages, we’ve had a great time in Coffs.
“This is my 25th Coffs race and today’s race to finish the series was superb. You can’t come to Coffs and not do a Solitary Island race. When I look around this boat to see what’s changed all I can say is that I used to sail with a lot of young guns but now we’ve all got older together. This is a great series that offers a bit of everything, many challenges and tests everyone to the limit. We’ll certainly be back next year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the event. I’m already looking forward to it.”


Divisional trophies for the two IRC divisions for the passage race were awarded as follows;
In IRC Division 1, it was ‘Le Billet’ 1st, ‘About Time’ 2nd and the other Beneteau 44.7 Matthew Percy’s ‘Alacrity’ finishing in 3rd. The pre-race prediction rang true for the 40 odd footers to take the race on handicap.
The PHS Division was won by another Middle Harbour competitor in Kerry Burke’s Northshore 370 ‘Mortgage Choice Rumba’ from the Rutherford/Ryan Beneteau First 36.7 ‘First Light’ with Rick Morgan’s MBD Custom ‘Dream Lover’ in 3rd.

Turning to the overall series, the prizes were awarded as follows:
In the IRC Division overall, it was a well deserved victory for Bill Ebsary and his crew aboard ‘Le Billet’, on 5 points who took home a swag of trophies as well as a brand new carbon fibre wheel sponsored by McConaghy Boats, presented by Cameron McTavish, Director of Business Development. In 2nd place was ‘Dark & Stormy Witch’ finishing on 18 points pushing ‘About Time’ into 3rd following their excellent  2nd placed performance in the final race of the series. ‘About Time’ finished on 19 points after a 9th placing in the final race.
In the PHS Division, it was a win for another RPAYC competitor in Robert Alder’s J35 ‘Jayhawk’ with 9 points, sailing a consistent regatta with two firsts, a third and a fourth.  Second place went to another RPAYC competitor, the Rutherford / Ryan ‘First Light’ a Beneteau First 36.7 on 14 points with 3rd place going to local Coffs Harbour boat, ‘B52’ two points back on 16.



The prestigious Navigator's Trophy, awarded to the boat that gets the closest actual finish time to its ETA from the last radio check at Nambucca went to Howard Piggott’s Beneteau First 40 ‘Flying Cloud’ who managed to get within an impressive 11 seconds of their ETA to their actual finish time.

There were eight Beneteau Yachts entered 2 from Queensland, 2 from Sydney harbour and 4 from Pittwater

Alacrity   Matthew Percy  Beneteau First 44.7
Alibi   Barry Jackson  Beneteau First 40
Blunderbuss   Tony Kinsman  Beneteau First 40.7
First Light   Chris Ryan & Mark Rutherford  Beneteau First 36.7
Flying Cloud   Howard Piggott  Beneteau First 40
Le Billet   Bill Ebsary  Beneteau First 44.7
Reverie   John Turnbull  Beneteau 40.7
Ticket of Leave   Maxwell Prentice  Beneteau First 40.



Beneteau Vicsail would like to congratulate all the Beneteau Yachts who took part in this
event, what a fantastic achievement by all.

For the full story go to......

http://www.pittwatertocoffs.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=122&Itemid=38