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The trip down to the coast on Friday afternoon was a motoring affair, with the wind on the nose all the way via the inshore route. However, with the motors purring away on BW, there was only minor intrusion into our pleasant discussions, feeding frenzies and a few coldies. The channels between Straddie and the mainland are confusing at the best of times so we weren't surprised to find ourselves occasionally stirring up a bit of mud at low tide.
Arriving at 1800 hours, we anchored at the pontoon at Horizon Shores overnight; MIchelle's Mum lives there and had booked a place on the mooring a while back. Kay also provided vegetables and the dessert for the evening meal. Al & I headed off to the briefing at Southport Yacht Club at about 2030, getting there just in time to sign on and receive our 'Yacht-tracker'. It was a well-run short briefing with a few more amendments to channel marker details handed out to the offshore starters.
Early rise Saturday and a quick swim across the channel at 'Land's End' for a couple of us - it's called 'beat the bull shark' down there but it certainly is a great way to get rid of a hangover. After breakfast we headed out of the seaway to the start line with about forty monos and the other two offshore multihulls, Renaissance and Rhythmic. The weather forecast provided at the briefing suggested that the almost non-existent E-SE wind would build to 15-20kt NE by late morning, so we figured it would be best to make some easting before the stronger winds set in. Spectacular 0900 start, which we timed pretty well to avoid colliding with a pack of monos ahead and then gathered speed to the north-east. Well, we got to four knots at one stage, briefly. Our screecher was only just holding air most of the way.
Rhythmic, under spinnaker, was way out ahead of us and Renaissance chose to gybe in toward the surf of South Straddie to pick up the counter-current. Maybe we should have followed them? Anyway, we managed to get up to Jumpinpin by 1130 and were off Point Lookout by 1500. A huge pod of dolphins joined us along here and kept Deb and Mac amused as they each tried to reach down from the bow to scratch a dolphin's back. The dolphins seemed to have even more fun trying to splash the scratchers. We had lost sight of Rhythmic and Renaissance by then but were following their progress on the ship's computer via tracertrack. We noted that the lead monohull, Blackjack, was averaging 8kt and likely to finish mid-evening, and also saw that Renaissance had apparently passed Rhythmic and was in the NE channel already. Rhythmic was heading NW along the northern shores of Moreton. We held our screecher fairly tight on the wind all the way up to within a few miles of Cape Moreton, slowly catching a mate aboard Patience II, one of the tail-enders of the monohull fleet and drawing away from Escape, another spinnakered mono skippered by Mo, who has done a few Gladstones with us.
Past the Cape, the wind was dropping but we were free enough to carry the screecher again, all the way down to NE2, the turning mark for entry into the NE channel. It was 2330 as I came up on deck after an attempt to get some sleep. As I took the helm, the wind dropped away to a zephyr, just enough to keep us going against the tide. Ahead of us Patience gybed back and forth across the north east channel while we tried to make maximum southing along the western edge of the channel.
At one stage we even considered anchoring to avoid going backwards. Just as we were about to do that, a big mono came up behind us, probably motor-sailing, but she brought some really good NW wind with her. the foredeck was a bit of a mess for a while as I cleared away the screecher pole. Luckily the sea surface was still dead flat, so there was no chance of testing out how good my harness was.
With this new breeze we made a good 6-7kt for a while and I retired to bed just before we passed between EK1 & EK2. When I awoke, we only had ten miles left to go and had managed to pass Patience. We finished just before 0800, with an elapsed time of 22:55:35 and about five hours behind Rhythmic and Renaissance. That was still good enough to get a second on OMR. Rhytmic had worked her way back ahead of Renaissance during the night and took line honours, OMR and PHRF for the multi fleet.
The surf to city races are great concepts but I think the offshore option is much more scenic in terms of raw nature, skirting as it does the wild beaches of three major sand islands. It is an ideal preparation for the Brisbane to Gladstone since even the fast yachts will see some night work most years. This year even some of the inshore fleets were still reporting in to the finish boat after dark.
Magoo, aboard Beats Workin'
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