That was exactly how Rob Date put it to me when his RP52, Scarlet Runner, had crossed and taken Line Honours in the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s 2011 Melbourne to King Island race.
Scarlet Runner had barrelled out of Port Phillip Heads and into Bass Strait doing 16 knots. A mile later they were doing seven and a short while after that, barely four, on their way to seeing a whole a bunch of zeros for some time, before really getting underway again at around 0600hrs. They had done just 14 nautical miles in the first five hours of the race, so the record went off the menu, about as fast as their pace went down. Later in the day, it was wonderful to see the big red kite appear from around Bold Head just after 1800hrs and they crossed the line in delightful Autumnal sun at 18:49:40, around 25 minutes ahead of Gusto in second place at 19:14:52.
We are still waiting on third place, which is likely to be eXtasea, but the breeze has closed down for a while, so let's hope it is not for the entire evening. Of the 25 starters all are still coming, except for Spirit of Freya who has calculated that they can be back at Port Phillip Heads for Slack Water at 0800hrs, when they were looking like 0700hrs on Sunday here at King Island. All onboard are well, it was just the maths for them.
Photographs are copyright by law. If you wish to use or buy a photograph you must contact the photographer directly (there is a hyperlink in most cases to their website, or do a Google search.) with your request.
Please do not contact
Sail-World.com
as we cannot give permission for use of other photographer’s images.
Customised news feeds -Marine Industry companies, Clubs and Associations have their own customised version of our news feed on their website. Look_here_to_see_examples
