Apollo Bay Sailing Club

Tell Tales

12th February 2018

Next Saturday and Sunday come down and enjoy a drink from our bar as you sit on the lawn in front of the sailing cub and enjoy the view across the harbour as part of the Seafood Festival. What a great place to sit and soak up the atmosphere of the festival. You can also watch some boats as they battle it out in the harbour at close range.  

The tide may have been too low at start time to get out of the harbour, but that had already been taken into account with 3 cunning keel boats moored in the bay at ten am awaiting their crews to be ferried out at start time. With 20knts predicted nobody was going to miss Saturday’s race.

Morgan and Geeks had the unenviable job of trying to set the course with a wind shift of a full 180 degrees just minutes from the start. But not to be outsmarted they pulled up one of the buoys and madly dashed directly across the course, dropped it as the start mark and with just minutes to spare were ready for a rockin rollin keel boat start.  Boheme hit the line up wind on port at full tilt. Ten Plus One got away cleanly on starboard but only after Wild Rose got up a little too close and personal and had to dump their heady. All the keel boats had a great day and all kept the pedals pressed firmly down. It was spectacle after spectacle as viewed from all angles. With winds settling into a southerly pattern and staying “fairly” consistent (with the odd gust over 20) both sides of the course were reasonably even. But as usual there were some small gains to be made by small wind shifts. A little tidal action at the top mark also saw crews that had not paid enough attention (in the last 100 mts or so) needing to put in another tack to fetch the mark, ouch!

The dinghy start was a little tardy with nobody across the line in the first 5 seconds. The small boats battled hard to the top mark with a couple of lead changes. Ziff and Affrodite settled into a battle that would last the three triangles. Ziff just doing enough to stay ahead but it was by no means a certainty. Miss Molly and April Dancer were just astern, cutting back the margin upwind only to see it blow out a little on the reaches. And as with the big boats there were few places to eek out an advantage. The second reach was a scorcher with the wind square off the beam and the Flying Fifteens able to plane and hit some of their higher speeds. Exhilarating stuff for all the boats but with your bum only inches from the water and your back catching the tops of the swell as you hiked out, it was particularly fun to be on the little boats. A real ‘mast bender’ of a day, as attested to by Miss Molly as she limped back to port, double ouch!!

The Ynglings had a good day out with Community Bank dashing back to replace a blown out jib before the start. The crew making the sail change count with an over the line win on Trading Post.

Heat 6 - Summer Series

Heat 13 - Café 153 Club Championships

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