Melbourne Winter Series - Cat 4 plus 55 knots equals what?

by John Curnow on 17 Aug 2009
Ocean Racing Club of Victoria's (ORCV) Melbourne Winter Series - The Bureau of Meteorology got it right again.

So Cat 4 plus 55 knots equals what? Postponement, that’s what. The Bureau of Meteorology certainly got it right again as you can see from the graph of Sunday’s wind. Over the day the average was 26.55 knots and the average gust was 35.97 knots. What are most interesting however are the maximum speed of 43 knots and a huge 59 knot gust at around the same time as the starting gun was meant to be fired!

Once again, the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria thanks the BoM for their very accurate predictions from Saturday evening, which is when the Race Director said, 'Not on my watch!' With the breeze from the Northern quadrant, the two to three metre seas were never going to be massive at the top of the Bay, but that breeze sure was significant.

So whilst their cousins up North were lolling around in warm, gentle breezes, the best those in Melbourne could do was look at some pictures from racing a couple of weeks before. Incidentally, this was when it was 'just' fresh to frightening with a maximum of 34 knots, not Sunday’s delightful wild to tempestuous!

There is a re-sail day specified in the Notice of Race for the Melbourne Winter Series and competitors are advised to keep a 'weather eye' on orcv.org.au for details.

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