Ocean Racing Looms Again

by John Curnow on 13 Jun 2016 Sitting at Airlie watching another retired old giant of the sea take backpackers out for a jaunt into the Whitsunday Islands, I got to thinking about the boats that will soon be on their way and all the crew that is needed to undertake both delivery and racing.

Gone are the days of everyone having the whole weekend available to spend on just the one pastime. Everything is a set of constraints, a bargaining situation and then there is traffic congestion to weave through, for the weekend now seems to have worse traffic than the weekdays.

Many crew who used to be available all the time are now deployed on other duties that form part of the great journey that is life, and nearly every owner always comments on the lack of good sailors around these days. So then, here we have a mass of miles and a roundup of races in which to train crew.

Used to be that you did the deliveries to get on the boat of your choice, and in a way, it is still the same today. Good thing one is not trying to get on Matador, Hammer, Southern Cross, Condor or Longabarda, for even though they are in Survey, they just don't look right and you just think to yourself, no thanks.

Still, we digress, for the main reason for preparing this is to comment on how you can skill up people whilst getting here and then also whilst here, and thus prepare them for the Christmas time races. Sometimes it can blow pretty hard here, and no, not just in the cyclone season, so it is a good chance to see who’s on top of the requirements and who is not.

Doing everything whilst still warm is lot better than finding out on the way to Tassie with greenies coming over the decks in an almost relentless door knocking type session. The air and the water are just thicker down there, and so accordingly punch with a heavier mallet in hand.

Also, not everybody is here on this planet to hang off the windward quarter of a carbon flyer, so there are other things they need to learn for the safe and enjoyable use of displacement craft. The growth of the performance cruising divisions at regattas all over the country is testament to that.

In the next couple of months, those divisions, and all the happy sailors who fill them, will be having a blast, doing passage races and make up the vast majority of souls out on the water and also back at the bar!

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