Apollo Bay Sailing Club

Tell Tales

14th January 2019

For anyone lucky enough to find themselves down around the harbor this week one of the most beautiful sights was yours free of charge. All you had to do was cast your eyes out over our glorious waters and you saw a half dozen little one sailed Optis and some larger two sailed Pacers gliding about the harbour looking like friendly water spirits. The kids & adult classes of the learn to sail program were bathed in sunshine and fair winds for the four days. Only in Apollo Bay eh!

And what can be said of Saturday’s race?  Firstly, you need to put your imagination in the correct frame. You will have to swap the angelic faces of children in Optis for the sunbaked, scarred and weathered features of the Saturday sailors. And you will have to allow for the scurrilous, despicable and dastardly behavior that is often displayed. But putting the skipper and crew of Boheme aside for one moment, I should really just tell you about the race I guess.

The Interlude crew set a port course on a South wind, shifting just into the SSE(?). It was consistent (ish) between about 10 and 15. The sea state, a little choppy, was to make using the spinnaker a nice challenge and boy isn’t there some great sailing ‘under the silk’ going on this year.

Boheme had the best of the keel boat start and Its Magic and the other keel boats would live to regret the 1 min or so they conceded off the mark. That might sound like a lot but with a 40ft boat just a small ease or stall 40 seconds out from the horn can take you minutes to recover from. The big boats take real skill (and even a little courage) to wrangle around the cans and this year we have seen some skillful sailing from them all.

The dinghies got off cleanly with most having a good start on starboard. Affrodite, who had to untangle their main sheet, had to quickly tack over to port, eventually putting them on a run along the beach/ layline and resulting in a very handy lead on the other dinghies at the top mark. Good luck or cunning sailing? Tim will only admit to the latter of course! The first upwind saw Ziff, April Dancer and Ffantome trading blows with some exciting close crosses. Oh yeah, and that “exuberant” fireball Champagne Jam showing off well ahead of everyone as they spun their spinnaker magic on the reaches. Shiralee and Euffamism hung in early but dropped back a little later on.  

Some persistent spinnaker work by Its Magic and asymmetric of Wildrose and Quickmatch just could not do much to arrest the charge by “asymmetrically tuned up” Boheme. The bohemians had a lead of four minutes by the end of the first triangle, conceding only 32 seconds of that to the others by race end.

Greg and Wayne had a great sail on Community Bank as the h/cap results below show.

At day’s end the icing on the cake was literally ‘the icing on the cake’ that Angelika provided as everyone gathered together for a bbq to celebrate with the Try sailing peeps a gorgeous week of learning and pushing their personal boundaries. Thanks to all that helped with the bbq and well done to all the participants of Try sailing and the organisers.

Life is good. Come Sailing!

To find out more see our website www.apollobaysailingclub.org.au or our Facebook group - Apollo Bay Sailing Club