I took a day off from Arcanacon to go sailing with Ewen. He is a member of the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria and I think, editor of their magazine. There was an event, the Geelong regatta, been going for well over 100 years and the biggest racing carnival in the southern hemisphere. I had no experience at sailing at all and found myself as crew on a vintage racing yacht called the Scimitar, built, I think in the 1950’s. I guess on such a busy weekend crew are hard to come by. My job, to tension the stays on the upwind side of the mast when we tacked. I As we went around I would release the tension on one side, race over to the other and put on the tension on the other side.
We headed out and were quite confused at the start. One of the start buoys seemed to be missing, maybe all of them were. I cannot remember. About half an hour into the start the other group of yachts started their race. Eventually a speed boat came out with the buoys and we were able to start the race. Here is a little video from the pre race manoeuvring.
Once the race was going, we powered ahead. But a change in the course owing to a large cargo ship in the middle of the course caused us to go the wrong way. When we did turn to get back on the correct course we dropped the spinnaker in the water. I raced over to help haul it in. Later I was warned o the danger to life and limb doing this. But life went on we did some catching up, but the loss of ground was too great. When we returned we went around next to the James Craig while we were gathering in the sails.
