Adelaide - Port Lincoln Rough Start Sublime Ending

by Maggie Joyce, Mariner Boating Holidays on 3 Mar 2008 We have just returned from taking part in the 2008 Adelaide to Pt Lincoln Race and the Pt Lincoln Blue Water Classic.

This year a team from the Sydney yacht Brave Heart chartered True North, (through Mariner Boating Holidays) and competed for the first time. The race overnight from Adelaide and the following five days of racing in Port Lincoln is an annual event with a social emphasis.

The start in Adelaide was a rough affair with winds up to 40 knots whipping up nasty 3 metre seas and causing more than half the fleet of yachts to retire before arriving in Pt Lincoln.

Here on the flat waters of Boston Harbour the event is joined by a variety of trailorables and local cruising boats for five days of spirited competition, with lobsters a plenty on offer as prizes.

After the crossing the Sydney crew, skippered by Bill Meiklejohn, was delighted by the friendly country welcome with the local whiting, prawns and lobster an added bonus. Accommodation is in the marina with the yachts moored nearby. The Marina Hotel hosts the after race gathering each day while crews await the results.

On Tuesday night many of the crews attended a BBQ at “the Haldanes”. This has been a tradition for seventeen years. The family have owned a prawn trawler since the 1950s so of course there was the odd prawn on the barbie that night!

Wednesday is always Mega’s BBQ on the beach after a morning race and fortunately the sun made an appearance for the event. Temperatures were only in the low twenties this year but the breezes on the Harbour were perfect - between 10 and 25 Knots over the five days on the bay.

The two Beneteau 40.7s slogged it out in a close fought series. True North and Adelaide yacht As Good As It Gets were in keen competition in their class. The new Spirit of Lexus, a Bruce Farr designed 42 footer built by Austral Yachts in Adelaide was the overall winner in IRC followed by Exile, (a new DK 46) and True North, (go the Sydney team).

The final night presentation is at the Yacht Club where the sailing juniors who are members of the Ocean Mentor junior program run by the club did all of the table service. A few also had the day off school on Wednesday to ferry the yachties ashore for lunch on the beach.

It is always a fantastic event and in 2009 we are hoping to organise to stay on for the annual horse racing highlight, the Lincoln Cup. There must be some other good nags over there to keep Makybe Diva company.