Sydney International Under Way

by Andrew Campbell on 16 Dec 2007 A typical Saturday in December on Sydney Harbor can be quite a scene. Add a few hundred Olympic one designs to the mix and you've got one of the most crowded sailing areas in the world.

Local clubs around the harbour are running their own races for classic 18-footers, Etchells, and hundreds of PHRF style classes. Those are added to super-maxis and other grand prix boats in final tune up stages for the Sydney-Hobart Race that starts next week.

Beyond that is the normal ferry-boat and seaplane tour traffic, augmented by the standard anglers and pleasure sailors. If it weren't enough already, add puffy 12-18 knot breezes and you've got yourself a sunny summer day in Sydney. Adding two forty-boat Laser fleets to the middle of the channel already chock full of 49ers, radial, finns, and 470s is a recipe for disaster, but they seem to make it work, not withstanding some close calls.

A couple of the Laser guys commented that it is as if you were setting up a street hockey game, but instead of on a quiet cul-de-sac you put the game in the middle of a freeway. While you are waiting to race you have to keep alert, otherwise you might get speared by an Etchells.

While you are racing you have to stay on your game or else you might find a two hundred foot ferry doing 11 knots bearing down on you, horns blasting. I happened to be in the other fleet when that incident occurred yesterday, but with the fleet rolling out left, into the channel and more favourable current, the ferry had nowhere to go but on his horn and in full reverse.

Quite a scene, I'll tell you. Somehow I managed to scrape though unscathed in yesterday's three races. I was about 7th in the first race (the fleet is split for two days of qualifying), followed by a 5th where I was winning the race but committed a bonehead foul, demonstrative of the fact that I've taken a month off of Laser sailing.

I was able to redeem myself though in the final race of the afternoon, just squeaking by the leader as we passed the finish mark to win. Yesterday we started at 2:30 in the afternoon as a part of the fleet staggering process leaving the dock. That meant that we didn't make it back until 6:30. Today is quite the opposite. We're first out of the gate with a warning gun at 10:00.