Western Port Marina 2000 Queenscliff to Hastings Record falls!

by Gary Clapham, Commodore, ORCV on 11 Sep 2000 The Western Port Marina 2000 Queenscliff to Hastings Race won in record time.
At 4am on Saturday 9th September at Queenscliff, a fleet of some 92 ocean racing
yachts crossed the start line in the annual Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s Queenscliff
to Hastings Yacht Race. The race is the last race of the 2000 Winter Series sailed on
Port Phillip Bay as well as the first race of the 2000-2001 season and is used to shake
those winter cobwebs out It is also the introduction for many new crew to ocean yacht
racing being a short 45 nautical mile dash to Hastings.

The weather forecast predicted that this was to be a fast race with spinnakers from the
start and a quick reach east in Bass Strait before entering Western Port Bay.

Bill Rawson’s pocket maxi ‘Sorbent Helsal 2’ led the fleet out of Port Phillip Bay, with
Nigel Jones’s ‘Cadiburra 7’ inshore and applying plenty of pressure on the reach to Cape
Schank. With the wind veering to the north, the spinnakers came down and the yachts
continued on a two sail reach until rounding the No 2 buoy and hardening up. The beat
up the channel into Western Port saw ‘Sorbent Helsal 2’ break clear and cross the finish
line at Hastings at 8.40am setting a new record for the race and taking the handicap
double in PHDA. ‘Cadiburra 7’ crossed the line second at 8.58am to win the AMS A
Division while Wayne Huxley’s new Grainger designed cat ‘Desperado’ in its first ocean
race crossed the line third at 9.00am.

‘Terra Firma’, a Murry Burns and Duval 40 footer owned by Stewart Neimann and David
Gotze’s Farr 40 OD ‘ Brighton Star’ had a close battle for the IMS honours with Terra
Firma crossing the finish line just 1 second in front of Brighton Star at 9.10am to take
the IMS trophy, pending an protest.

With the wind abating and the tide changing some of the smaller boats in the fleet had a
hard battle sailing up into Hastings and the last yacht Roger Johnson’s ‘Happy J’
finished at 1.30pm.