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Queensland NS 14 Titles 2008Mooloolaba Cruising Yacht Club In early planning meetings, April on an exposed Queensland coast was disparaged as potentially prone to wash out due to inclement weather. With this advice on board arrangements were made to hold the State’s at Mooloolaba on the ANZAC day weekend. Offshore Mooloolaba; entrants were looking forward to great rides on reaches involving boat surfing. Steve and Robyn had picked me up from home early Friday morning, very early. Surprisingly I was awake and coherent (at least there were no reports to the contrary). We made Mooloolaba in good time; 8.30am. Just as we arrived Steve got a text; ‘… you have been eyeballed’. What the! We haven’t even started yet. Anyway it was a roundabout, we don’t have to indicate! Southerners made the trip north allowing for plenty of time. In a display of Queensland confidence Neil Murray demonstrated local knowledge of traffic conditions on the Sunshine Coast motorway and timed his run to perfection, backing the boat onto the rigging lawn minutes before the scheduled briefing time. Jess never doubted your organisational skills, Neil. Prior to the briefing, as everyone else arrived and started rigging, the difference between the top end of the fleet and the Queenslanders was starting to become obvious. Southern boats were being turned over, polished and buffed. For South Brisbane representatives trailer tyres were being kicked and we were just trying to figure out whether we’d brought the stays. Amongst the bags of liquor we also tried to find the sail repair tape so we could start taping up the numerous de-lamination holes in our ‘good’ racing main. The course was described at the briefing and seemed simple enough. Nev was having trouble joining the dots and had the course for ‘shortened course at buoy A’ wrong. Luckily I was eyeballing from behind and was able to give the correct course. If in doubt, turn around and follow ‘Prism’. Just to be sure, follow us all day. Being ANZAC Day black ribbons were attached to masts and stays. In recognition of their Father and Grandfathers contribution to the Australian commitment in WW1, Bob, Nev and Neil also known as “Larry, Curley and Mow” flew the Australian Flag and pennant for the 11th Light Horse infantry, which served at Gallipoli. We made our way out of the marina and onto the course. Given the calibre of sailors I requested that Steve miss the start by a few seconds to keep us out of the way of serious contenders. We made our way around the course without incident and when we approached the finish line we covered Mark and Jodie. Sorry guys but we’ll do a lot not to come last. Second race of the day started better than expected. Completely miscalculating the start we found ourselves on the line at the gun; nothing for it but to make a brilliant start. After the first windward work we rounded the mark onto the reach leg. We were mid fleet, but more importantly.....”Don’t gybe, Steve. There’s something I’ve got to do.” I turned around and took in the view of every Murray behind us. I gave them a good eyeballing. I was looking into the sun and couldn’t see a thing. I could only hope they saw me clearly – the last of them was some way back. As we approached the finish line we covered Bob Murray. Not last again. It was turning into a good regatta. After the races we all de-rigged on the lawn. There was a bit of apprehension about leaving things overnight. We looked at our boats and looked at the NSW boats. Our boats would be safe against all but fools. With not a second thought we wandered off. Jim R was still a little nervous and wasn’t looking forward to the potential front page of tomorrow’s local rag. “Idiot steals crap boat: sails stolen off boat that came last, twice”. After realising the insurance implications he piled the boat high with gear (including a Rolex watch) and joined the rest of us sauntering away. Jim’s crew for this regatta was a local girl, Jess Watson. The local paper had published an article to promote the event, featuring Jess. Her aspiration is to sail around the world single handed. A good choice seeing as trying to do it with Jim on “Need for Speed” would have taken some time.... As I helped Steve enter the results into the computer that night I noticed opportunities people had missed when naming their boats appropriately to their sail numbers. 2001 – why not “Hal” or “Dave” or “the black monolith” (my favourite) and then there’s the obvious “space odyssey”. 1984; well that’s just screaming out for an Orwell reference (not that I can think of one). We’d sailed “Prism” at a standard just above the level where normal people give up. A successful day. Second day.
Endless sailing. Race 1; Just beat Race 2; last (it had to happen) On the last day Steve and I arrived early. Jim’s boat was just sitting there. We moved it over to behind some others. Jim arrived later and stood exactly where his boat should have been. Eventually he realised what was missing and went and retrieved “Need for Speed”. Neil arrived later still and sported an ‘Elton-esque’ pair of huge sunglasses – I got the point. I’d be able to see him eyeballing me no matter how far ahead he was. Noice. Steve asked me to put the vang on and Neil asked whether he needed to take a photo… of me doing something. Are ya right?! However, that would have meant he’d have to do something. We were all perplexed at how to get out of that one and stopped what we were not doing to give it some thought. Last Race: we missed the start and continued to lose ground. Us and another boat tacked and headed out on the starboard side of the course. The helicopter followed; replacing a pleasant 4 knots with 24 knots requiring severe hiking. Somehow it figured we weren’t probably the best boat to follow and flew off to the rest of the fleet rounding the windward mark. They pushed Neil sideways onto the mark. He recovered but had to round it again. Neil capsized on a run and fell a long way behind. I hope he appreciated the fact that I didn’t take the opportunity to eyeball him...because I’m nice. Well no, not really, he just didn’t look my way. I was still worried. It’d just be our luck for him to still beat us. In the end we only just held him off and worked very hard to ensure N. Murray came last. I didn’t want to contemplate coming last to someone who’d spent time in the water. It had been a great weekend of sailing. Although our result wasn’t fantastic there were worse things; the tan lines around the kneepads. There was really only one thing to do; continue driving to Hervey Bay, get the barge over to Fraser Is and spend the rest of the week evening out the tan. I’d checked the mobile for messages in the car park while searching for my car that my friend had driven up from Brissie. The shopping list from the campers was long but did include a bottle of Black Label Johnnie Walker and another carton of beer. Given our sailing result I was prepared to indulge them. “Prism of Life” finished the weekend down the bottom of the ladder. Never really getting speed on the reaches. But we had finished as we’d expected we would. Thinking “Prism” could do any better than the tail end was about as realistic as telling a 2 year old throwing a tanty to grow up (as I found out later in the week). Like references to Nev’s nipples, Bob’s Brazian and Jim boat bong, our performance was something we could put behind us until the next State titles in October. See you all then. Anita – Crew “Prism of Life” |
