New boards and a polish for next year

Bateman's Bay 2010

Hi All

The Anzac long weekend regatta in Bateman's Bay was our last event of the travellers series for this season. Three F18s joined the fleet of over 90 boats for a great weekend of racing. Bateman's Bay is a beaut location for a regatta and was very popular with families. The boats are rigged on the beach in front of the holiday cabins. (Photos below). The racing is only for 2 days so the third day can be spent with the family and /or recovering from the previous nights party. A great social regatta for the end of the season and well worth thinking about for next year.

On the series point score there was only one point between the two lead boats and this regatta would decide the overall winner. I think Grantly and Katie must have slipped James' wife Clo a bribe because he was summoned to a compulsory wedding leaving Pete without a skipper. A bloke called "Cabin Boy" was pressed into service as captain of the Durepox and they made a good attempt to win the series from Grantly and one of his hot shot mates. Alas Grantly was just too good. At the other end of the fleet Stuart and I realised that if we sailed each race at this regatta that we would not be last in the series. We are over being last so we were on a mission.

The first day of racing was a light nor'wester which was just as well because we had over 30 cats on the starting line in our division. Race two was a bit of a demolition derby at the start. James' mate Neil in the 5.8 did a pretty good job of converting a Taipan into a monohull earning himself the dubious title of "Captain Crash". That night about ten of us had a BarBQ and partied at the salubrious "Aquarius Holiday Apartments" and Neil was in deepest remorse.

The forecast for day two was for a 27kt Southerly. The sky was black and everyone was a little nervous. Pete, Neil and Cabin Boy decided that they didn't want to return with two smashed up boats so they retired and packed up. Grantly was thinking about pulling the pin but could not contain the boundless enthusiasm of his crew. Stuart and I and Grantly were the only two F18s racing in the fleet. Luckily the weather was not as bad as expected and we competed two races without drama. The results for the F18s were Grantly, 1,1,1,1 Pete 2,2,DNS, DNS and Stuart and myself, 3,3,2,2.

The overall travellers series was won by Katie and Grantly. James and Pete were second and Greg and Kez third. The prize for the series is a spinnaker generously donated by the series sponsor Australian High Performance Catamarans. This does not go to the series winner. Each event that a team has raced has earned them one ticket in a raffle that we will draw at the prize giving dinner. Our series fees will help to subsidise this night. This will encourage and reward participation in the regattas. Our aim is to get more F18s together racing in a fleet.

As this is our first season we have disused the presentation night with some of the sailors. The feed back was that because we all live so far apart people would rather travel for a regatta than just a dinner. At this stage we are investigating having our presentation night at the end of August at the Brass Monkey's Regatta at the Sydney Flying Squadron (SFS). This will be the first event of next season. A few of us raced at this regatta last season and found it quite fun. It is in a central location (Milson Point Sydney Harbour) and the restaurant is reasonably priced. They have a spectator ferry running on the Saturday and sometimes they have music on Saturday night. This means that families can come and watch and the girls can frock up for a nice dinner and dancing. For the kids who are still playing winter sport the racing is on both Saturday and Sunday, so they could play footy on Saturday and come down to the dinner on Saturday night and race Sunday. At this stage we are making enquires with the SFS and will keep you posted.

All the best

Leanne