Surf to City Yacht Race – Upwind all day

by Peter Hackett on 19 Jan 2016 Surf to City Race – The formula must be good because this Australia Day pre-weekend has just cracked the record for entries in the QCYC race. At the time of writing, 111, sorry now 112 boats are converging on Southport for this Saturday’s start in this unique race where the big guys start outside the Southport Seaway and do a long ocean course finishing in the middle of the night (hopefully) at Shorncliffe, while the little guys duel in the tidal drains in the wonderful calmer waters inside Stradbroke and Moreton islands.

Inshore
One can only assume that it is the motivation of recent events that has got the 2016 competitive juices flowing. The sports boat guys are back as a crowd of very fast little boats after agreeing at last week’s national titles that a rematch in the drains would settle the score. Peter Sorenson is back on Conquistador making us all feel like we can last forever, and Bad Grandpa will challenge that in name and boatspeed. Charles Baker on More Dough will continue to blur the line between sports boat and light displacement trailer sailor as his well-practised crew push the limits.

Peter Kerr’s Pagan and Bluey Williams’ Tequila always battle it out at the classic yacht Concours d’Elegance, but this weekend they are going to take advantage of well-shaped keels to try and beat each other on the inshore shallow course.

APC Mad Max is certain to blast her way through the spray to gain multihull line honours again this year, but if the upwind stays light, my money is on a little trimaran like Garry Scott’s national championship winning Coco Loco to challenge for overall rating supremacy.

Whatever the outcome inshore, we will (yes, me too) be doing nearly 100 tacks and should get pretty good at them by the time we watch the sun slide behind the hills of Mt Cootha.

Offshore
The big fleet outside has grown from the influence of last week’s Sail Paradise Regatta, fuelled by the hard working overnight crews needing to get sea hours up before the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race at Easter.

In the absence of any of the BlackJacks, the monohull rating result could come down to the ever-improving Kerumba versus another well named boat, The Fat Controller. The crews may well decide the outcome, with the daylight hours spent tacking inside the breakers of the Gold Coast surf beaches, and the evening spent trying to dodge taxing currents while heading back into Moreton Bay under a nearly full waxing gibbous moon.

After enjoying last winter’s northern racing circuit on the big blasting catamaran Mojo, I would have to recognise her as a favoured winner in the offshore multihulls, but Gary Saxby has recovered from his runner up bruises last week and is ready to fight again.

Inside or outside, the 2016 event will be a cracker!