Apollo Bay Sailing Club

Tell Tales

22nd January 2018

My goodness but sailing can be a capricious sport at times. And I am not even talking about the mercurial and cantankerous characters involved (keel boat sailors). No, I am thinking of the vagrancies of the wind and sea and the myriad variations between them that can (or not) come together to allow a day out on the bay to be fulfilling (or not!). And when wind and tide and swell conspire against the best laid plans of rodents and sailors alike there is no amount of cursing or cajoling that will coax mother nature to throw something more obliging your way.

So it was on Saturday, with super organised duty crew Team Yngling (Karlijn and Stephan) ready to go. They had the plan, they had the instructions, they had the enthusiasm, they had the height, they even had the sketch of the potential course up on the blackboard, but alas, even with all that solicitous planning their hard work and attempt to woo the wind goddess would go unrequited.

The talk pre race was interesting, with ideas of a short downwind of 800mts being argued by some as too short to launch a spinnaker. Note: in the 1983 America’s cup series win by Australia 2, skipper John Bertrand demanded of his crew that he hear the crack of the spinnaker setting in no less than 5 seconds after launch. And he was hopeful of eventually taking a couple of seconds off that! So by my reckoning that would have left a half decent crew about 795 mtrs left to mess up the retrieval.

But if you are thinking “hang on I saw sails out there on Saturday!” you would not be factually incorrect, but seeing sails and assuming that people were out there “sailing” are quite disparate realities. That being said there was every attempt to bring about a result. The race countdown was attempted and some boats did actually get over the line. In the end though even the most hopeful amongst us had to finally admit that having boats floating backwards was indeed unlikely to produce a winner, but was likely to leave many of the sailors without enough brain function left to safely navigate their way back into the harbour. So with the likelihood that the dinghies might have to spend the night flopping about aimlessly out to sea the keelboats fired up their motors, hooked up as many dinghies as possible and dragged them unceremoniously back in.

But fear not because sailing is a bit like that; not so great one weekend, perfect the next! As usual the conversation back at the club was free flowing and full of laughter and friendship. And with another BBQ extravaganza planned by Angelika and Heather the only real problem of the afternoon was when to bring out the food and begin the sumptuous feast they had prepared. So until next week and a fresher breeze blows our cares away, Bon appetite!

Thanks To Our Sponsors

Apollo Bay & District Community Bank, Great Ocean Road Trading Post, Waterfront Motor Inn, Café 153, The Fishing Co op, Surf-n-Fish, J&C Marriner Earthworks

Life is good. Come Sailing!

To find out more see our website or our Facebook group - Apollo Bay Sailing Club