Sailing Club

Tell Tales

Learn to Sail’s 2^nd last session for the season was a blast!

Friday night’s Learn to Sail Program was blessed with glorious conditions last week. 13 participants enjoyed the relatively uncrowded session using 3 pacers and 3 Optimists. The theme for the session, Give Sailing a Go was enthusiastically embraced by all with a resounding Hell Yeah! The passion and joy was evident throughout the evening, even though or perhaps because many sailors pushed through some nervousness or angst in settling in to their sailing. We were all delighted to see all the boats having so much fun zooming around the harbour together with the level of sailing skill and confidence being very impressive.

This Friday will be the last Learn to Sail session for the season. We’re planning a special sailing-based celebration event with end of season prizes and awards to congratulate and acknowledge all the participants.

May 17/18 Marathon Weekend – volunteers needed across the weekend. This is the biggest fundraiser for the club and every volunteer makes a difference. Keep an eye out for the volunteer roster or get your name down early for any preferred spot 0478615523 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Race Day Saturday

Saturday was a picture-perfect day on the water, with barely a ripple and a warm 10-knot wind coming from the SWS. We set a slightly shorter course about a kilometre from the harbour entrance and kicked off early, with everything lined up for ideal sailing conditions.

Black Pearl almost missed the start arriving a minute before the gun went off, floating backwards over the line, while the rest of the fleet found themselves at a standstill running entirely out of wind. It didn’t take long for the breeze to fill in, and the race was on!

On the first windward leg, April Dancer found the right spot and rounded the first buoy just a couple of seconds ahead of Black Pearl. Windswept, 10+1 Euphemism, and State of the Ark weren’t far behind.

Black Pearl had a bit of a struggle with the spinnaker on the downwind leg but managed to tidy things up, getting out in front to finish first on the shortened course. Euphamism raced an incredible race on the older Flying 15 to finish second, with April Dancer rounding out the top three.

A heavily loaded 10+1 took it for the keel boats having a super powerful start (and being the only keel boat).

A special thanks to Jane for joining us from Colac Sailing Club and Edo for co-captaining the Safety Boat.

A great day for all involved!

Our last day for sailing this season will be Easter Saturday. So if you’d like to come and join in the fun come and see whether you can get aboard one of our boats by joining the briefing at 12.30pm Saturday 19^th.

Results

Life is good. Come Sailing!

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