Rain, bull sharks, capsizes and a cat with one less life

by Andrew Stewart on 30 Oct 2009 The crew of Taking Back Sunday arrived at Lake Macquarie Yacht Club at 0700 and prepared our Elliott 7 for its long-awaited entry in the HCW 24hr. That’s when the rain began.

Taking Back Sunday had missed the previous two year’s events on account of thoughtless sailing mates placing their weddings on the October Long Weekend.

We put the boat in the water and tied up to one of the arms and were immediately accosted with a strong rain front with a solid 25 knots behind it. We eventually left the marina with a Number 2 heady and sailed to Toronto, arriving just in time for the briefing.

After stocking the boat with a case of beer and some lunch, we made our way to the startline.

Our start wasn’t particularly good – in fact it was ordinary – but we had clear air and managed to keep close to the other Elliott 7s on the long beat ahead, despite being short of weight on the rail.

As we passed Wangi Wangi Point, we were rudely awoken from our rail slumber to the excited squeals of the headsail trimmer who had spotted a 2.5m bull shark swimming a boat length or so to windward of us.

The shark appeared to like the look of the Elliott 7 and altered course, swimming directly towards us before disappearing beneath the retracted legs of the crew!!!

We continued our beat into the freshening southerly and driving rain. Talk on deck was becoming less frequent and we were clearly beginning to wonder why we towed the boat from Sydney to the Lake to subject ourselves to this kind of abuse.

For me, it wasn’t so bad, because I was focused on the telltales and trying to stay with the other fully crewed E7s. I was also partly shielded by three others...

After what seemed like about three hours of beating into the southerly, we rounded the top can in Chain Valley Bay, set our chute and began planing our way back towards Toronto via Belmont and Speers Point.

We decided to knock the chute off at Point Wollstonecraft and were shocked to see what appeared to be another Elliott 7 lying on its side with its spinnaker flogging wildly in the 20 knot southerly.

As we approached, she laid right over with its mast seemingly below the surface of the water.

The keel was partially retracted and some of the crew had jumped into the Lake (with the bull sharks) and were hanging onto the keel attempting to right the boat like you would a dinghy.

Needless to say, the recalcitrant Elliott wouldn’t have anything of it, so my brother got on the radio and reported the matter to the start boat.

Unfortunately, we got the LMYC start boat that was starting the Etchells’ Spring Regatta on Belmont Bay.

After being advised that all heads were accounted for, the conversation from that end went dead! Shortly thereafter, the Elliott righted itself, its spinnaker was recovered and it resumed racing. Pleasingly, we were no longer the last-placed Elliott 7!!!

We set the spinnaker again at the Point Morrisset mark after the two-sail reach from Point Wollstonecraft and planed our way to Belmont Bay, clocking 13-14 knots at times and enjoying ice-cold beers from the esky and the opportunity to enjoy the scenery as we approached Belmont Bay, where most of us grew up sailing dinghies and skiffs.

This part of the course proved very successful for us and we reeled in the second-placed Elliott 7 at the LMYC mark before passing it off Green Point with an early kite set. We managed to scoot our way to the Warners Bay mark holding a narrow lead over our nemesis, Woof.

Our strategy was to simply cover Woof to the finish line, and this seemed to be working quite well until we got to Bolton Point and I slipped during a tack to avoid a starboard-tack 50 footer and the boat rounded up violently into its path.

I scrambled to leeward to catch the tiller extension all the while aware of the panic I had generated on the rail. The lady steering the 50 footer had panicked too, and let go of the wheel!

Pleasingly, one of the boat’s minders grabbed the wheel and steered it head to wind just as I did too. We probably missed each other by about an arm length with the result being that the crew of Taking Back Sunday didn’t have to swim back to Toronto with those bull sharks.

During the kerfuffle, Woof had broken through our cover and by the time we had recovered, apologised profusely and resumed our race, he was a couple of boat lengths ahead of us. Bugger!!!

We rounded the bottom can with the short beat to the finish ahead. We discussed our options and decided that if Woof tacked to stay in the stronger pressure on the left hand side of the course off the Toronto shore, we would hit the right hard and see where it got us.

We got a great lift off the shore and the pressure stayed there too – the first time during the day that Huey hadn’t spat on us.

Woof came back from the left side of the course and we crossed the line 16 second in front. We all cheered and opened another tin of Carlton for the two-sail reach back to LMYC, a hot shower, and some dinner. For the record, I decided against the fish.

PS: We were recorded as a non-starter!!! Raaaaaaa!!!