Batemans Bay Marina Regatta 2023

Batemans Bay Sailing Club has been running this event for over 40 years, the largest annual sailing regatta on the NSW South Coast. Sailors came from Sydney, Canberra, all over South East NSW and as far away as Adelaide to race on the open waters of Batemans Bay.

The regatta is open for dinghies, catamarans, trailerable yachts and sports boats. There were 68 boats entered in this year’s regatta including strong fleets in the F16, Lightweight Sharpie, VXOne, OK Dinghy, Hobie 14 and 505 classes.

There were two races held back to back on each day. Saturday was a beautiful sunny day with a 5 to 10 knot sea breeze. By Sunday a southerly had come through at 10 to 15 knots which was enough to generate plenty of thrills and a few spills on the downwind legs.

In the Lightweight Sharpies Michael Forster, Andrew Forster and Daniel Roos won the last race to prevail in a close contest. VX One class act Rob Douglass and Nicole Douglass had to do it the hard way to win sailing two up against crews of three. They were very quick in the light conditions on Saturday but struggled when the breeze came up on Sunday.

In the OK dinghies there was more close racing as Mark Rutherford won on a countback from Peter “Robbo” Robinson. There was a great contingent down from Vincentia Sailing Club to race Hobie 14s including Andrew McKenzie who took the overall after winning both races on Sunday.

Once again the event was made possible by the big team of volunteers out on the water including race officer Phil Yeomans as well as the social committee run by Bev Dunne and Peter Smith who put on a well received soiree on the Saturday evening.

by Lachlan Brown

Main photo: 505 “Why Not” blasting around the course under spinnaker. Photo by Andrew Bain