Oceanhippie.net - Tom's Blog

“If I asked God to give me a perfect race this would have been it” – Misquoted from Simo, but close.

First we thankyou to sponsors Garmin and Navcom. 

The wind was lighter at the start than we on Shaw Thing had expected. Stuart, our Race officer, had managed to secure Nightbird for a start boat, which was bigger than we expected. A healthy 5 Division one boats piled in for the start. Judging by the pictures supplied by Kacy the other starts were equally competitive.

With an outgoing tide, and relatively fluky wind it was a minefield off Larrakia, full disclosure, Shaw Thing went too far into Doctors Gully taking when the keel found mud. But it still paid. We were able to catch Joust by Stokes hill Wharf. Unfortunately Zanzibar near caught us at the same time.

The wind filled in about then, we all got powered up and headed up East Arm. The Off the Beach Cats elected to go the other side of the harbour, we couldn’t see much but Raketvapen was leading.

Shaw thing, Zanzibar and Joust went left.  Even Karma went right. We were wrong. Even Karma stormed in into the top mark leading the monohulls, but the cats were already a round led by Rakevapen, in its inaugural race, followed by Lilith and Nautilus.

The South Easter, late to come in held for the down wind leg, we dodged Zanzibar who beat us to the top mark by a whisker and blasted off in pursuit of the big fellas.

It was a great run from East Arm to number 6 buoy 7.5 Nm as the crow flies, further as the Tornado sails. Ethan on Lilith has a track, I’ve seen 19Kns in a screen shot. 19 Knots is fun J It was an absolute romp on a Shaw 650.

The off the beach cats were well away, after rudder problems Rakevapen ceded the lead to Lilith, who rounded six buoy first. On Shaw Thing we clawed our way past Even Karma then Joust and right up to Nautilus. But beating back into Fannie Bay was a big boat game. Watching Joust come up on you on a beat is a bit like watching an oncoming train. There’s a certain inevitability about it. It was incredibly tight on the finish line, had it been much further Joust would have had line honors, if she or us made even a small mistake Even Karma would have caught the both of us. It was not just tight on the line, less than a minute separated first to third on handicap in div one.

LINE HONOURS:

Div 7      Tornado               Lilith                                    Ethan
Div 7      A-Class                 Launching                           Chris
Div 5      Tasar                    Tequila Sunrise                  Phil and Sarah     
Div 4      S80                        Calypso                               Fiona
Div 3      Stealth                 Nautilus                              John
Div 1      Shaw650              Shaw Thing                        Tom

HANDICAP:

Div 7      1^st Lilith                                              Ethan
               2^nd Raketvapen                                 Peter
               3rd Nemesis                                      Morris

Div 5: 1^st Tequila Sunrise                Phil and Sarah
2^nd Crackerjack 2                             Michelle and  Bern
3^rd Scram                                           Alva

Div 4:     1^st Calypso                                       Fiona
2nd Assassin                                    Brecko
3rd Blondie                                      Claire

Div 3      1^st Nautilus                                       John
2^nd Cockatoo                                   James

Div 1      1^st Shaw Thing                                 Tom
2nd Even Karma                              John
3rd Zanzibar                                     Jenny

Kerryn won the Garmin $1000 prize. Deservedly so. She was on the Committee boat and did the results which are here

 Massive thanks to the curry cooks, rescue boat and committee boat crew, Kacy and Scott for the awesome photos. Nightbird for being our committee boat, Stuart our race officer and especially Bob Stroud from Navcom / Garmin our sponsor.