Sailing Club

Tell Tales

You can watch the weather all day every day, but the only weather that matters is the one you are sailing in at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon really. The thing I have found strangest about weather watching in Apollo Bay, is that the Bom’s equipment is actually located at Cape Otway! Now, that does not seem very far away, right? Actually 8.4 nautical miles, as the crow sails, so to speak (that’s 15.5 klm for any land lubbing crows out there).

But look closely at a map and you will see that there are plenty of geographical “sticky out bits, “sticky up bits” and even the odd rainforest in between the two places. And anyone that has driven from Apollo Bay out to Cape Otway (or even the other way past Cape Patten) on a grey misty day (into the glaring sunshine) knows that you sometimes need to take what you are seeing on the weather sites with a very healthy (not in a medical/ heart foundation “tick” kind of way) grain of salt. And since weather predicting these days is quite reliant on “modelling” would it make more sense if that “modelling” actually relied on accurate input, rather than from a place 20 klms west and just slightly tucked around the corner from, let’s say, the place it is trying to model?  ……just sayin.

And just when you throw your hands up in the air and are overheard muttering expletives about the Bom, weather modelling and AI forecast simulation it all comes together, just as they said it would!

A light s.s.west wind with really nice pressure held up all day and probably freshened to about 11 knts right near the end ( just as predicted).

Bourney and Anton (Euffa) set an 800mtr port triangle. The start between SkiffleBeat and Windswept was a very close affair with Windy not able to squeeze up on SB just a little to put their bow forward and take advantage off the start. Interlude went a little further down the line and with a ditty bag full of Marriners on board (John, Jordan, Ethan), and a freshly cleaned hull, looked to be getting through the water beautifully.

With a fairly short upwind, consistent pressure and no real tidal influence to speak of there were a couple of splits to see if Windy could find an advantage. Paul and Kel on SB stretched the lead slightly a couple of times, but Gary and Jesse just kept hauling them back in.

The real moment for greatness came on the second triangle when Windy threw up the kite and for a moment anything seemed possible. A bit of wayward trimming lost them any advantage, but a clean drop and tidy work saw them only mtrs away on rounding.

With only mtrs separating them yet again on the last upwind Windswept slightly split off again to give it one last go, to no avail in the end, but only by 20 short metres! With Interlude a close 3^rd on Handicap.

Geoff, Graham and Ross on Moonlighter ghosted around for a practice race which looked promising.

Results

Junior Sailing

Friday night saw a bit fresher wind, allowing the kids to get in some really exciting sailing. Watching them reach across the harbour and listening to the chatter as they swapped boats was lovely. Watching even the mildest ones take the tiller and step up to the challenge, with Octavia and Maya kept busy making sure everyone was attentive to the task at hand and swapping kids in and out of boats to give everyone a go.

The Optis are perfect for the little ones (but still a huge challenge) with the pacers just allowing the more confident to stretch out a little and manage two sails and a crew: what a handful!

Though not part of the juniors, Kevin was out in the Hansa 303 and loving the extra breeze on Friday arvo, allowing him to get moving really nicely and see what the boat is capable of.

Life is good. Come Sailing!

To find out more please see our Facebook group - Apollo Bay Sailing Club.