Sailing Club

Tell Tales

Apollo Bay really turned it on this past long weekend, with weather and beach conditions to die for. And didn’t the crowds enjoy themselves! And for one short weekend, Apollo Bay looked like a real fair dinkum resort town, weather and all!

But forget that for the moment and let’s get back to reality; the unpredictable nature of the wind in Apollo Bay, to be precise.

Saturday was looking like one of those 50/50 days, and we have had a few of those this year. But that aside, there were plenty of willing participants rigging up and rearing to go in the stifling heat.

Windswept was on duty and Jesse was totally unfazed by the uncertainty. With Gary away he was happy to get a hand from Octavia. And what a great job she did, helping him get a result on what would end up being a very challenging day.

The breeze was flukey, coming and going but always just managing to fill back in from the east, well actually from several directions but swinging back to the east mostly.

Start time came and 10+1 took off on stbd. Boheme, less than 30mts away, was wallowing in a patch of still air. And that was going to be the story of the day (two boats separated by only a few metres could end up in totally different wind zones). But by the top mark Boheme had come back in from the right, rounding the top well in front of the Tenners who had spent time in a windless zone over on the left.

The small boat race start was nice and even with the wind, which had all but disappeared, just starting to fill in again from the east. Skifflebeat got caught in a light patch at the line, but again, by the top mark they had come right back into it.

Boheme kept her momentum in the consistently fickle breeze, and after three better than expected triangles had sailed a very smart race. 10+1 paid the price for wandering onto the wrong side of the course and the waxing and waning breeze just didn’t let them atone. Moonlighter used the day to get in some practice.

April Dancer, who had managed to round the final gybe mark in front of Ziff could do nothing but watch the faster finishing Ziff sail over the top of them to cross just 9 seconds in front. Behind that Skifflebeat had jumped out to a healthy lead over Euffamism and did enough to secure a handicap win. Thanks to Jesse and Octavia and all the competitors for just getting out there on such a difficult but in the end rewarding day.

Results

Life is good. Come Sailing!

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