Apollo Bay Sailing Club
Tell Tales
7th January 2019
The first race of the New Year – with an extreme low tide and big swell forecast the start time was brought forward to avoid danger at the harbour entrance.
The wind looked light – a worry for the unpowered dinghies (& the deep draft keelboats) looking to shoot the entrance between sets but none were deterred.
As the wind strengthened and swung round to the southwest the duty boat crew set a course in the bay. And the race was on.
Keelboats started first – what a start to remember! Quikmatch (Helands unlimited) hit the line on the gun treading carefully between Boheme pointing them up and the barge buoy on the duty boat. Wild Rose dashed daringly across on port tack (taking a chance with no right of way) but crossed safely. But Boheme’s normally flawless teamwork slipped into disarray - getting stuck head to wind ‘in irons’ with a vigorous discussion aboard which is not appropriate for the pages of this newssheet!
So to the dinghies. With a visiting crew, Great Ocean Road Trading Post nailed the start almost scraping the paint off the duty boat they cut it so fine.
And the swell grew. And grew. The dingies disappeared in the trough while the big keelboats thundered down the rollers just metres apart. Boheme catching 10+1 and Its Magic and finally the elusive Wild Rose.
Meanwhile, April Dancer led the dinghies, with azure and white spinnaker aflutter, racing down the course pursued by Gary and Lisa in Ziff and father and son Team Smith on State of the Ark.
Trading Post hoisted their great grey kite & did so well until a wild gybe saw the spinnaker become a massive sea-anchor deep in the drink. Greg and Wayne on Community Bank and Doug & Andrew on Euffamism both seized the opportunity to overtake tho Trading Post eventually chased them down in a tight finish.
In the final analysis, Wild Rose took 1st place on handicap closely followed by Kariljn and Stefan, the flying Dutchies, in Shiralee. And exhilarated, jubilant sailors dodged the waves at the entrance to discuss what was, what might have been & what will be next week!
This week brings the Mobile Boatshed to Apollo Bay with young and old out in the harbour learning how to sail and to have a great, safe time out on the water.
Life is good. Come Sailing!
To find out more see our website www.apollobaysailingclub.org.au or our Facebook group - Apollo Bay Sailing Club