by Julie Hartwig
May 2004
It’s May 2004. I had been sailing for six months on a very steep learning curve. For months, I’d heard talk about the Bay to Bay race, but as the race approached, I knew I had to be a part of it. Invited to crew aboard Roy Yeeles’ Sabre 22 Rhoma II, what follows is an eye-opening account of my first Bay to Bay Race …
I arrived at Tin Can Bay Marina where Rhoma II was berthed and left my gear on board. The marina was full of boats, many doing as Skipper Roy has done and launched the previous day.
There was an sense of anticipation and excitement in the air at the marina. People were making last minute preparations on their boats. There was no wind and Snapper Creek looked like a sheet of glass. The first sand banks had begun to emerge as the tide ebbed.
There was no sign of Rhoma's crew, either, so I went down to the yacht club. The place was crammed with people, none of whom I knew. It was odd to feel a stranger in my own yacht club! There were two portable toilets in the parking lot, and a man - presumably a sponsor or someone to do with race organisation - had set up at a table at the entrance to the club. A huge marquee had been set up in the courtyard and half a dozen picnic benches had been moved out there from the verandah. The smell of bacon and eggs was heavy in the air and the deck and clubhouse were jammed with people having breakfast. Race control check-in was set up at the far end of the clubhouse, together with a merchandising table selling race t-shirts and hats. But the action was all out on Snapper Creek in front of the yacht club.
Dozens of boats of all shapes and sizes were anchored there, many rafted up, stern on to the beach that was emerging in front of the yacht club. It was a majestic sight to see so many boats. The air was really buzzing with excitement. I overheard someone saying the official entry was 165 boats. Seeing how so many are jammed into Snapper Creek - most of the catamarans and trimarans were moored right around towards Norman Point - it was impossible to imagine how the start would be organised. But I surmised the organizers would make some sense out of the chaos.
The excitement and sense of anticipation was building by the minute as the 9.30 race briefing time approached, but like everyone else, I just wanted to get on the boat and get underway.
0930 - Race briefing: The dignitaries made their speeches, including a rather lengthy speech by the PRO Colin Verrall about safety. Surprisingly, no mention was made of anything directly relating to the race; i.e., start line procedures, etcetera. I surmised the details must be in the little plastic carry bag that people were receiving when they signed on at the race control desk. (I later learned - Monday morning in Hervey Bay! - that this bag contained the souvenir program, a rough course map and the all important sailing instructions for the race!)
During the briefing I saw Steve and Debbie Smith (my former next door neighbours and owners of a 14ft Windrush catamaran that had provided my first sailing experience). I didn’t know they were doing the race, but after the briefing I talked to them and discovered they were doing the race with Alan Jones on his cat, In Too Deep.
1000: Back at the marina, there was a mad rush to get out of the marina, but we had to wait our turn as there were four boats packed in the marina berth behind us. When it was finally our turn to leave the berth, Roy fired up Rhoma's 8hp Yamaha outboard and we motored out of the marina to join the procession of boats heading down the creek. Most of the boats that were anchored in front of the yacht club were already out at the starting area.
On board Rhoma, we stowed fenders and mooring lines, then got the main up. Bruce set up the spinnaker bag on the pulpit rail and ran a check on the pole control lines. In the fortnight since I last crewed on Rhoma, Roy had replaced the spinnaker halyard and the spinnaker uphaul. It was hard to miss these lines now as the former was now fluorescent pink and the latter was bright blue! The loose headsail halyard jammer had also been fixed.
Out in the starting area, chaos was building as boats milled around waiting for the start. The falling tide was keeping everyone on their toes. The race was scheduled to start at 1100, which meant we should get a ten minute gun at approximately 1050. We killed the Yamaha in readiness as boats cannot be under auxiliary power after the starting sequence begins. We waited, but the 1050 start gun didn't happen. We turned on the radio and learned that the race start has been postponed ten minutes.
1100: The ten minute gun went off at 1105, then a second postponement was announced over the radio. Race start was now approximately 1115. In the meantime, Roy had been checking out the start line. The wind was very light - less than five knots from the south-west - but enough to guarantee a spinnaker start. Roy decided on his start line tactics, but we suddenly found ourselves in trouble when the outgoing tide began carrying us down on the start line. If we crossed this after the ten minute gun, we would be penalized. Thankfully, we managed to claw our way back over the line just as the ten minute gun went at 1115. Another boat was not so lucky and the start was abandoned yet again.
At 1120 the ten minute gun went again. Division 4's white bucket went up the start boat mast. We waited for the five minute warning gun, but there wasn't one. We had been cruising around the starting area under main and jib and were not sure if the start was going ahead. Bruce was keeping time on the signal that went at 1120 and we waited for a one minute signal, but there wasn't one of those either. However, the white bucket was still flying and the other Div 4 boats were starting to make their runs at the line, so Roy did like-wise just in case.
1130: A gun was fired, but we weren’t sure if this was the start gun and asked the start boat as we came up alongside her. We were told that yes, we were racing and there was a mad
scramble to get the spinnaker up and then we were away.
The wind was very light - still less than 5 knots - and shifting constantly. Over the next hour as we headed up Tin Can Inlet towards the Carlo leads, Rhoma made little more than a couple of knots, but the ebb tide was running at about the same speed as the boat, so we were moving along at a good pace. We experienced a couple of big wind shifts - SW to SE - which forced us to gybe the spinnaker, but the shift didn’t last long before the wind went back to the SW and we had to gybe back again.
This was the first time I’d really raced with spinnakers. I quickly learned what was involved in gybing a spinnaker and was surprised by how simple the procedure is: Bruce simply released the pole from the mast and attached it to the sheet at the spinnaker clew (this became the brace), then released the pole from the brace (this now became the sheet) and attached it to the mast. I had thought there was some convoluted procedure in the cockpit involving sheets and halyards, the uphaul and downhaul, but nothing happened in the cockpit except the gybing the main and a slight trimming of the sail once the manoeuvre had been completed. Simple.
Roy was watching the other boats, many of which had chosen to go down the western side of the inlet near the entrance to Teebar Creek. He thought this might be a mistake because the lifts when they came, seemed to be coming down the middle of the inlet where we were. He also thought the current was stronger there, too.
Shortly afterwards, we were becalmed. Boat speed averaged 1 to 2 knots, but this was only the tide carrying us along; the log was sitting on zero. Behind us, we heard Division 3 and then Division 2 starting and looked back to see a wall of spinnakers coming down on us. The sight was truly magnificent. I'd never seen anything like it, but now I knew I was in a yacht race.
Then we got another big wind shift - south-west to north-east. Spinnaker down. We decided to try the reacher, but the zephyr of wind was very fine on the bow and we resorted to the jib, but there wasn't enough wind for that either and like everyone else, our sails just hung like
limp rags. We couldn’t seem to make any progress. The zephyrs of breeze appeared to come up the inlet in narrow channels. One caught Rhoma's bow and pushed her beam on to the tide. Suddenly, we were going backwards and there wasn't enough wind to bring her around. Bruce had the helm and just put it hard over, hoping that it would bring her head around. It did eventually. Most of the Div 4 boats were in the same predicament, though every now and then a boat would pick up a puff and scoot away. It was very much nip and tuck. If you got breeze, you had to milk it for everything it was worth. We had to pay very careful attention to our sail trimming and were constantly playing with the sheets.
We could see the wind ahead of us, like a line across the Bay, but there wasn't enough wind where we were to get us there and we had to wait for the tide to bring us down on it. That breeze line proved elusive and we never seemed able to catch up. We did manage to pick up a few small puffs, enough to get a knot or two on the log and before we knew it, we were in 5 knots of breeze and heeling. There were jokes about hanging onto the boat because it had been a while since we felt Rhoma heel. The breeze gradually filled out to a nice 10 knots nor'easter, but by then we were being swallowed up by the faster boats that didn't seem to have been as affected by the calm as we were.
The news came over the radio that the flooding tide at Big Mick (the pile beacon (T1) inside of Inskip Point) was causing a few problems. Apparently, boats were cutting their rounding too fine and were being washed down on Big Mick and were then having trouble getting back up to go round the mark. Roy decided to give Big Mick plenty of room.
1330: It was now well into the afternoon but we had barely covered five of the twenty-two miles to Garry's Anchorage. Roy and Bruce were saying that many of the boats would not make it to Garry's Anchorage before the time limit of 1645 expired. Then over the radio we heard that the Division 3 and 4 race would finish at Big Mick and the race was on to get Rhoma there before Just Thinking, Geoff Watts' Roberts 246, because there was a bottle of red waiting for the boat that got there first. The last we saw of Just Thinking, she was among the boats ahead of us on the western side of the course. But on the run up to Big Mick, we discovered she was actually behind us and the race was on to make sure she stayed there. Roy really wanted that bottle of red.
It was a hectic time. We were sailing lower down the course than most of the boats and had to get higher up to make sure we gave Big Mick plenty of room. It took four or five tacks - the port tacks very short ones as we cut across the fleet - but we finally rounded Big Mick just after 1430. Just Thinking was still behind us and Roy was very happy. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on that bottle of red, but we joked that maybe Geoff and crew would drink it to drown their sorrows and refill the bottle with bilge water!
Once over the finish line, we turned onto a close reach with the wind just forward of Rhoma's starboard beam - her favourite point of sail. We hoisted the reacher and with three sails up, suddenly we were bounding along at five knots with hardly any need to touch a sheet for well over an hour. It was magic sailing as we watched the sun going down over the mainland, casting a glittering track across the sea.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and as we rounded S38 off Snout Point, a course change brought the wind round further on the nose and with daylight fading, Roy decided to motor sail the rest of the way. Down came the reacher and headsail and Rhoma's 8hp Yamaha ended our peaceful cruise. The noise didn’t spoil the spectacular sunset - a real red sky at night job - but it got very cold after sunset and it was time to reach for more layers.
1745: We motored into Garry's Anchorage and found the place jammed with boats rafted up
everywhere. After much searching in the semi-darkness, we finally found a place where we could back Rhoma's stern up to the beach. It was almost high tide when we rafted up
alongside another boat, tied Rhoma to a mangrove root and tossed the anchor over her bow to hold her head steady. We waded ashore through the mangroves and picked our way through the sandy and tree-strewn foreshore to the main camp - an adventure in itself! Roy signed off and we grabbed some drinks and caught up with a few people before heading back to Rhoma.
Upon reaching her, we discovered she appeared to be quite a bit further from shore than we left her, which struck us as odd since the last of the flood tide should have washed her closer to shore. Roy waded out - well up to his waist! - and pulled Rhoma closer in shore for Penny and I to board, but the water was still thigh deep. Thankfully, it was quite warm, which was more than could be said for the almost frigid air temperature, which quickly set us shivering once we scrambled aboard!
Roy asked me to take the slack out of the mooring line, but to my horror, I found the line was free in my hand, though both ends were still wrapped around a horn cleat on deck! Suddenly we became aware that we were drifting. Roy asked if I let go the mooring line. I told him I hadn't; that it came free by itself. He started the motor and asked Penny to go forward to the anchor line to pull us up to the anchor. By now we realised we are drifting quite quickly and were in danger of colliding with other boats. Then Penny asked Roy if he realised the anchor line was not tied to the boat. She had caught the bitter end of the line moments before it disappeared over the side, which explained why we were drifting.
We motored around looking for Mike Harrison's Flying Fox by torchlight to raft up to. But after two fruitless laps of the anchorage, Roy decided to anchor alone and gave Penny and I instructions as to how to go about dropping the main anchor. Neither of us had done it before, so we could be looking at a real comedy of errors.
At the chosen spot, Penny let the anchor go, but failed to run the chain through the pin on the slotted bollard on the bow, and all the anchor chain ran out - about fifty feet. Not what Roy had in mind. He made us pull the anchor up and do it again, this time running the chain through the pin on the slotted bollard at about the thirty-five foot mark. Penny chucked the anchor over again. Roy put the Yamaha astern, the anchor grabbed, but Roy thinks we might be too close to a few neighbouring boats when the tide turns during the night, and had us pull the anchor up again.
We moved a little further away from the neighbouring boats and dropped the anchor again. Yamaha astern, but this time the anchor failed to grab and we had to pull it up a third time. Fourth time around, the anchor finally grabbed. It had taken us at least half an hour to anchor and by that stage, it was about seven forty-five in the evening. We were all hungry, cold and very tired, but we still had to rig biminis over the hatches and square the boat away for the night, all done in the dark by torchlight.
2030: With the boat finally squared away for the night, we all adjourned below for a drink and dinner - Penny’s special Bay to Bay spaghetti bolagnase. Bruce was still ashore and nobody felt like opening a bottle of red. It took a while to heat dinner up, and by the time it was ready, our appetites were gone and we all just wanted to crawl into our sleeping bags. But we managed to eat, then Roy went ashore in a water taxi - courtesy of HBSC - to find and collect Bruce. Penny and I had a good chat while we did the dishes - no escaping this chore even in a yacht race! Then I remembered that I had to write up my log. I pulled on another layer of warm clothes and went up into the cockpit.
It was a lovely night and very pleasant, sitting in the cockpit with Rhoma swinging to her anchor. There was light cloud drifting in, but plenty of stars were visible and the moon was rising. The boats looked magic with their anchor lights on. The anchorage was very busy, even at that late hour. The revelers on shore and on neighbouring boats were quite rowdy, but they were all having a good time, letting their hair down after a hard and challenging day's racing. It was a great atmosphere. I tried to write down my observations but there were too many and I was too tired to really take in all the fine details, but it was one of those nights that sticks in your memory for a while.
Down below, Penny had lost her sleeping bag. She was literally tearing the boat apart looking for it, unable to accept that Roy would have left it behind in TCB. When he and Bruce finally returned, he conducted another fruitless search, but the result was the same - no sleeping bag. Bruce and I - sitting in the cockpit - had a good giggle over their domestic
situation. In the end, Penny pinched Roy's sleeping bag, leaving him with the blanket he’d put in a locker just in case!
2200: The lights and generator went out to a wail of protest from the shore revelers. A few flares were set off, but when this noisy protest had no effect, the crowd began dispersing to their night camps and things began to settle down. We finally called it a night about 2230. No shower, no brushing teeth, sleeping in our clothes. Penny and I shared the V-berth. Even with the fore hatch open, it was quite cozy in there, with a school camp atmosphere, which gained momentum when the antics of the boys on the neighbouring houseboat kicked off about 2300.
We first heard them rowing around Rhoma, whispering to each other that they should be quiet because the people on the boat were in the yacht race and that one of them had heard we were a chance to win the race. Penny and I dissolved in a fit of giggles. When I looked out the porthole, I discovered that there were about ten men in an oared dinghy meant for about four people. The boat was so loaded down it had about three inches of freeboard. There was much laughter and hilarity as one of them tried to row, but the oars never touched the water. Somebody stood up and the dinghy tipped dangerously, pitching a couple of them overboard. Much splashing and shouting resulted as they were hauled back aboard.
Then the decision was made to make a boarding attempt on the houseboat. Someone in the dinghy shouted out that they were preparing to board. This announcement was met by a water bombardment from the half dozen men gathered on the aft deck of the houseboat. Every time the dinghy got close, it got sprayed with water from a hose. More men fell overboard from the dinghy and furious bailing began. Then a red tender with an outboard on the back joined the defence of the houseboat, tearing around the dinghy. At one point I saw it virtually stand on its stern under full throttle as it tormented the dinghy. Water bombs were then thrown by the guys in the dinghy, which was met by a furious water barrage from the houseboat.
Penny and I couldn’t stop laughing. It was the funniest thing we had ever seen and vastly entertaining. Finally, after about half an hour, the boys in the dinghy headed off up the anchorage, yahooing and screeching like monkeys. We didn’t know which boat they came from, but surmised they would all have sore heads if they ever managed to surface the next morning.
I finally managed to get to sleep, but it wasn’t a good night's sleep. Whether it was
because it was the first time’ I’d ever slept on a boat or because I was thinking about having to use the bucket and I didn't want to wake anyone in doing so, but I tossed and turned all night long. At one point I woke up and looked out the port. In the clear moonlight I discovered that there was a huge yacht now anchored alongside us. I wondered where it had come from, then realised that Rhoma's bows were now facing the entrance to the anchorage. At first I thought the anchor was dragging and kept checking on Rhoma's proximity to the yacht, but we weren’t going astern, merely swinging slightly and the dragging sound I heard was the chain rattling across the sea floor as we settled to the new tidal flow. I tried to look at my watch to see what time it was, but couldn’t see, and finally managed to go back to sleep.
Sunday, 2 May, 2004
Garry's Anchorage, 0615: I woke up to find the yacht I’d seen during the night was now very close alongside. Roy already had the kettle on. We packed up our sleeping bags, then made some breakfast (single serve Just Right with UHT milk and a mug of tea). Up on deck, it was a magnificent morning. A light surface mist was wafting across the water. Flags and burgees on the surrounding yachts were already beginning to flap in the breeze. The wind that came in yesterday afternoon was still with us, though more S/SE. We packed up the biminis and prepared the boat for departure right on the last of the flood tide.
We found Rhoma was getting washed down on and around the stern of the big yacht alongside us. Roy let more anchor chain out, but this only allowed us to drift further behind the yacht. At one point we had to fend off her quarter with the boat hook. We realised the anchor was actually dragging right under the yacht and the boat she was rafted up with. We thought we could have a problem when it came to pulling up our anchor because there was a very good chance that it would catch on the other two yachts' keels, rudders, propellers. But then the tide began to ebb, Rhoma was pushed back the way she had come and we were able to pull our anchor out from under the two yachts without any problems.
0700: We motored out of Garry's to be greeted by a magic sunrise. The forecast was for 10 - 15 knot SW/SE'lys. We arrived in the starting area off the southern end of Stewart Island around 0715 and checked out the start line. It was definitely a spinnaker start. Bruce and Roy discussed starting tactics and decided to start in the middle of the line, running square with the pole set on starboard tack.
0720: We got the ten minute gun and the white bucket for Division 4 went up the start boat mast. The starters were not messing about this morning. At 0725 we got a five minute gun and at 0730, the white bucket came down and we were racing. As planned, it was a full spinnaker start with a 5/10 knot SW'er. We were a little slow getting our spinnaker up, but we were soon away.
There were boats all around us, as many had chosen to start in the middle of the line like us. But before too long, half the field gybed onto port to get into clearer water and quite a few chose to go closer inshore. We chose to stay where we were. Roy believed that the port side of the course was an unknown quantity where sandbanks were concerned and he didn’t think there was as much wind out there.
A couple of Hartley TS16's - Blue Moon and Touch of Class - both caused us a few problems. In the first instance, Blue Moon, on port tack, ranged up alongside Rhoma, on starboard tack and began to pinch up on us. As the windward boat, Blue Moon had right of way, but her skipper displayed some rather unsportsmanlike behaviour, and refused to give us racing room. Booms threatened to clash, but Blue Moon held her course and kept us high, blanketing our spinnaker causing it to collapse. We began to lose boat speed and needed to gybe to find some clean air, but Blue Moon kept blocking us. Roy was forced to take evasive action by temporarily luffing up and thereby allowing Blue Moon to dip behind us. Some unpleasant words were directed towards the 'cowboys' on Blue Moon as their unnecessary action had cost us a lot of time.
Touch of Class caused us a similar problem, though this time, both boats were on the same gybe (starboard) and Touch of Class was trying to sneak by underneath us. Touch of Class kept pinching up on Rhoma, heading up towards us and taking our wind. Our spinnaker collapsed, we lost boat speed and Touch of Class surged ahead and bore away. In clear air again, Rhoma's spinnaker filled and we caught up, got half a boat length in front before Touch of Class headed up again, and blanketed our spinnaker. It collapsed, we lost boat speed and Touch of Class gained half a boat length on us then bore away. This happened several times, and while it was good close racing without the animosity of our tussle with Blue Moon, we started to wonder what Touch of Class's skipper was trying to achieve. Eventually, he realised that we would not give up our bit of sea willingly and gybed away.
The wind remained a fairly steady 10 knots, but there were frequent shifts of up to 90 degrees, from one quarter to the other. We got caught a couple of times when the wind shifted from the SW to SE. We gybed, only to find once Rhoma has settled on her new tack, that the wind gradually shifted back again. Consequently, we got plenty of practice gybing and trimming the spinnaker - something I had done very little of on Ra Shalom over the summer season at TCB.
We maintained good boat speed through the morning run, averaging 5 knots. Most of our running was with the wind on Rhoma's quarters. Big problems were frequently caused by the wash of powerboats cutting through the fleet. One boat in particular - a 50-odd foot motor cruiser with a three storey fly bridge, came tearing down through the fleet at close on twenty knots, throwing up a massive bow wave. The wash from this boat upset Rhoma so much that our spinnaker collapsed and we were forced to turn her bows into waves that were close on a metre and a half high. All on board agreed this was totally irresponsible behaviour by the boat's skipper, not to mention downright dangerous for boats under sail. Thankfully, when we recovered and looked behind us, we saw he had been confronted by the bulk of the fleet and had been forced to slow down to a responsible six knots. He was not the only stink boater who caused us such problems; there were many who displayed a like-minded contempt for us yachties. I wondered how many of them had actually been on a yacht subjected to a stink boat's wash. My guess was not many; if they had, I'm thinking they'd be a little more responsible. (Treat others how you like to be treated!)
At S24 off Boonlye Point, the course made a 90 degree right hand turn to head up along White Cliffs on a beam reach. Rhoma gybed onto starboard gybe, and with her spinnaker braced right round over the port bow, pole right forward, we cracked on nudging six knots. This part of the course could be quite hairy, with bullets coming over the hills above White Cliffs. We saw quite a few boats rounding up as they got clobbered by the infamous White Cliffs bullets. We paid careful attention to our spinnaker trim and came through unscathed. The wind was now 10/12 knots, SE/S'ly and held the promise of more in the afternoon.
Around S23 off Booker Island, the tide was running at 2-3 knots and we began our approach to the Crossover. This was the mid-way point of the Great Sandy Strait, where the tide coming down through Hervey Bay meets the tide coming up round the bottom of Fraser. The water was surprisingly shallow here - 14 to 16 feet - and even with the tide at half ebb, massive sandbanks were already visible. The wind dropped back to less than 5 knots, boat speed back to 2-2½ knots, less with the ebbing tide against us.
It took us three quarters of an hour to traverse the Crossover - cup of tea time for a thirsty crew! - but once through, we were running with the tide and the wind picked up to 10 - 12 knots again, SW'ly, though the odd SE'ly shift still came through to keep us on our toes. The running was mostly square with the wind over the port quarter again. It was great sailing, but constant attention had to be paid to the spinnaker sheet and brace to make the most of the wind.
Off River Heads, we saw massive charter boats out from Urangan loaded with spectators come to watch the fleet pass. The local Coast Guard was also in evidence, keeping an eye on everyone. Roy was now watching Foxy Lady, who had chosen to take a course far to the west of us. Looking at the plotted course for the race in the sailing instructions, we were sailing a pronounced dog-leg course. Foxy Lady's course was basically cutting the corner. The big worry was sandbanks and whether this course was actually faster than that prescribed in the sailing instructions. Roy watched with a keen eye. Past S13 on the end of Duck Island, it became evident that Foxy Lady was ahead of us. As we headed for the S11 green beacon between Big and Little Woody Islands, the wind began to pick up. By the time we reached the green, it had freshened to 15 knots and Foxy Lady was now well ahead. Her
skipper's gamble had paid off and Roy said he would keep that course in mind for next year's race.
As Hervey Bay opened up ahead of us, we observed that the boats ahead of us were having trouble carrying their spinnakers once they rounded the buoy off the north end of Little Woody Island and turned onto a beam reach. We decided to drop our spinnaker because it would have to come down when we rounded S5 and put the reacher up. Rhoma was back on her favourite point of sail - a close reach - powering along, nudging seven knots at one stage. The wind was now a good 15 knots and very steady from the SW.
Around S5, we could see the finish boat. The wind was a little too far forward to get the best out of the reacher, so we dropped it and under an eased jib and main, headed for the finish line.
1435: We crossed the finish line. A general air of 'we did it' filled the boat, but we still had to get to the marina and for the first time, Rhoma found herself close-hauled, bashing hard to windward. A few tacks to avoid the sandbanks off the point at Urangan, then Roy fired up the Yamaha. We dropped the jib and motored the rest of the way into the marina. By 1500 we were safely inside and dropped the main.
We were berthed in B1, right down in the corner near the main entrance to the marina. Just Thinking was already there and with Rhoma secured alongside, it was beers all round. The post mortem began on the pontoon as we got together with the crews from the other Tin Can Bay boats.
After a welcome shower we all assembled in Just Thinking's cockpit for nibbles. We cracked open a few bottles of red. Just Thinking’s skipper grudgingly presented Roy with a bottle of Jacobs Creek cabernet sauvignon for beating his boat in Saturday's race! There was much laughter and a good time was had by all.
1800: After dinner, we went to the Hervey Bay Boat Club for the presentation. The place was jammed to the rafters. We managed to find a table right at the back of the room. We could hardly hear what the MC was saying and spent most of the time watching the video of the race that was showing on the TV screens dotted around the room. I realised watching the video that watching yacht racing on TV was bloody boring. Nothing seemed to be happening for the cameras didn't pick up all the work actually going on aboard the boats; it just saw a picture of a boat sailing by. I realised that sailing was one of those sports that you had to be directly involved with - on the boat - to get any excitement or enjoyment out of.
The trophies were handed out. A Division 3 boat called Piccolo won the race overall on handicap. I remembered seeing her pass us sometime during the day. The TCB contingent
didn’t fare very well in the results, though Flying Fox had an absolute blinder of a race. Skipper Mike thought they finished 5th or 6th over the line in Division 3.
Finally the presentation was over. The general consensus among the TCB mob was that it was very poorly handled. The results were posted for all to see, but the crowd was six or seven deep around the board. Shaun went over and returned with the news that Rhoma finished 87th in Sunday's race and 82nd overall on handicap. Flying Fox finished 12th in
Division 3 in Sunday's race and 33rd overall on handicap. Dreamtime finished 29th overall, but the general consensus was that this was wrong because she pulled out of the race at the Crossover. Just Thinking finished 66th overall on handicap. I didn't know where Alan Jones finished with In Too Deep, but I remembered seeing her rocket past us just after we
rounded the green near Boonlye Point.
We all returned to Rhoma about 2230 for another night sleeping in our clothes, but at least civilisation was near at hand. I went to bed about 2315 and had a better night's sleep, waking only twice: once when Roy and Bruce decided they had to go to the toilet and were stumbling around the cabin in the dark looking for the key; and a second time about half three in the morning when a fishing charter boat fired up its engines and revved the guts out of them for a good ten minutes before they left the marina.
Monday, 3 May, 2004
Urangan Marina, Hervey Bay, 0600: I woke when Roy put the kettle on for his morning starter. I pulled on last night's clothes - which stink of fag smoke! - and packed my bags. I wasn’t making the return cruise to Tin Can Bay, but was going back by road. I gave Bruce a hand to pack up the biminis and got chucked off Rhoma at 0645. Roy wanted to get away early. The forecast wasn't good for yachties heading south down the Straits: 15/20 knot SE'ers. Rhoma would be taking it on the nose so they had to motor sail back to Garry's.
Final reflections of my First Bay to Bay . . .
I forgot to mention the dugongs we saw surfacing in TCB on Saturday morning. They stuck their heads up, saw all the boats around them and dived on the spot. We saw turtles doing the same thing. Coming into Hervey Bay we had five or six dolphins swimming alongside Rhoma's bow for a few minutes. That was magic, but like most moments like that, you never have the camera near at hand and by the time you've got it, the thing you wanted to
capture has gone.
On the sailing front, I learned heaps about spinnakers - hoisting, gybing, trimming, etcetera - from Bruce. I'm sure now that when I go back to Ra Shalom I won't be so fearful of her big kite. Jon might even give me a go as forward hand. I've read the theory, seen it done, understand it now. All that remains is to get out there and have a go at it myself.
Perhaps the biggest buzz I got was just before Rhoma left. Penny said she was glad she'd had another woman aboard. Roy told me I was the ideal crew: I was keen, willing to learn, didn't complain about the enforced hardships (no showers, wearing the same clothes, etcetera). Bruce added that I didn't worry, either. (Penny was the crew’s resident worrier; she did enough for all three of us!)
All in all, I had a brilliant time doing the race and hope I can do it again with Rhoma next year. Roll on Bay to Bay 2005 . . .