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Tales 29th April, 2006
The final sailing day for the season dawned
with little prospect of excitement for the Apollo
Bay Sailors. A meagre 5 knot easterly came in at mid
morning but by the start of the race the zephyr had
dropped to a paltry 3 knots, barely enough to blow
a candle out on high hill. The Bay’s closest
compatriot to the ‘Old Man Of The Sea’
wisely decided to pack in the coffee cabinet and so
‘Interlude’ did not attempt to take to
the water.
Not to be deterred the rest of the fleet determined
to set sail in hopes of a miracle wind springing up.
The miracle was actually that any of them made it
out of the harbour. In a valiant attempt to capture
whatever wind was available, ‘Sweatshop’
arguably the quickest light-wind boat in the fleet,
was photographed travelling directly east, toward
the rock wall inside the harbour. Geeks and Stewie
in “Not Your Average White Boat” would
probably be the first to do the arguing. ‘In
the blue’ and ‘Miss Molly’ were
engaged in a mighty tussle to see who could make it
out to the harbour entrance first (or at all). The
entire fleet were impressed by Miss Molly’s
optimism in wearing – wait for it – spray
jackets! Young skipper Julian Bourne ordered his father
as crew to lean out way over the rail, attempting
to lay their craft over and clutch whatever waft they
could get hold of.
Waiting a short distance outside the harbour entrance,
the rescue boat put up the finish flag - just to see
who might win the race to the start line! At one point
it looked like the natives coming to greet Captain
Cook as skippers and crew were heaving on the paddles.
The big boats, of course, won the race to the start
- engines really do come into their own at times.
However, the general membership were decidedly unimpressed
with ‘Jubilation’ running donuts in and
around the entire fleet as they flapped and flopped
at the back of the start boat. Never mind, it made
for a very neat ‘club photo’ that will
undoubtedly be mounted on the wall as one of the highlights
of the season.
With everybody waiting patiently at the start line
it was decided to postpone the race until 2.30pm.
Given that most took more than half an hour to get
from the harbour to the start line (despite paddles)
it seemed a forlorn gesture. Eventually, with even
the small talk drying up, the plug was pulled just
as Matt Armstrong yelled out, “Hang on there’s
wind on the horizon.” Yeah right, that candle
was still burning on the hill two hours later!
Anyway the membership had a nice opportunity for
a quiet chat and the banter continued into the night
when Ian and Sue Learey again hosted the season’s
end shindig in their shed. It’s rumoured that
the swords were drawn between the different classes
of craft. Some unkind poetry portrayed both dinghies
and keelboat skippers in unflattering terms. Your
correspondent thinks it is high time that both groups
came to their senses and compromised in a craft of
excellent all round performance, such as a Flying
Fifteen!
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