Cruising on Corio Bay

by Lisa Ratcliff on 25 Jan 2010
The record cruising fleet contesting Audi Victoria Week on Geelong’s Corio Bay enjoyed a magic outing on the penultimate day of competition.

In the Sunsail Cruising with Spinnaker division 1 results, Daryl Lea’s Beneteau First 367 Crackerjack is sitting comfortably on 15 points heading into tomorrow’s final race, nine points clear of the nearest boat, Peter Russell’s Sydney 36CR Wild Goats.

Russell is happy to share the story of how his boat’s name came about. 'It’s a play on Wild Oats, the Sydney Hobart line honours winner. But we don’t take ourselves as seriously as they do,' he laughed.

The crew also have their own awards system with a goat award presented each time a crew member does something wrong.

'If you do something positive you don’t get anything, but if you do something wrong on the boat you are in the running for a goat award. We have a Golden Goat awards night at the end of every season.

'One guy has picked up 50 awards in the last five years, his trophy cabinet is huge! 'The same guy also holds the Fletcher Christian award for mutiny and today he slept most of the way around the course so he’ll be getting another goat award for that.'

This is the fifth consecutive year Wild Goats has competed at Audi Victoria Week with its Mornington Yacht Club crew, including the youngest, the 53 year old for’ard hand, and Russell more than a little surprised he is running second on the pointscore. 'We don’t know how,' he admitted. 'We like to do well but we are not going to win, and we won’t lose any sleep because of that.'

Division 2 series results are headed up by Stirling Parker’s Lyons 30 4Winds Marine Racing and the division 3 leader is Simon Grain’s J24 Make My Jay.

'Today we sailed a flawless race. We finished first across the line and we are one of the smallest boats,' said Grain this evening.

'The conditions were magic, although a little difficult at times. We rounded the first top mark with the division 2 boats and eventually got ahead of most of them.

'We come down to take it easy and enjoy a few cans around the track but now that we are at the pointy end of the fleet it’s a bit more serious. We are going to have to pull a blinder out of the bag tomorrow.'

Grain, with is crew of five from Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, has been competing at Audi Victoria Week for more than twenty years 'on everything from big boats to J24’s' and is looking forward to tomorrow’s morning forecast. 'We go well in the light stuff,' he said.

In the Coca Cola Cruising Non-Spinnaker series Ignazio Parolini’s Beneteau 390 Stardust is leading the 30 strong division while in the Parks Victoria Classic Yachts division, Henry Newman’s Morgan 31 Maatsuyker, which is being prepared for its third circumnavigation of Tasmania, is leading on equal points with Martini.

The forecast for tomorrow is for east to north-easterly winds of 5 to 10 knots tending north-westerly during the morning then shifting southerly 15 to 20 knots during the afternoon.

Tomorrow is the final day of racing for the 166th edition of Audi Victoria Week hosted by Royal Geelong Yacht Club.

www.victoriaweek.com