The Club Marine Series – predicting the wind

by John Curnow on 18 Feb 2010 Day Five of the Club Marine Series on Melbourne's Port Phillip will be hosted by Sandringham Yacht Club this Saturday, February 20. The bruises should be fading and the sails back from the loft after the last round of the Yachting Victoria seven-day series, which runs throughout each Summer.

Now unlike last time, where the breeze was just going to build and then build some more from fresh to frightening, there are vast and great differences between the various online sources. This depends on the prediction model they have used. The forecast talks about it being all Northerly, which will mean a flat sea at the top of the Bay. Other websites talk about seabreezes for the afternoon, where Melbourne is set to make the low 30's.

A few old salts of the area are thinking that the morning's Division Zero race for the Grand Prix boats will be in NE to NW winds of 5-10 knots. By the time Divisions One, Two and Three and come out for the afternoon, it could have clocked around to the SSE or even East at 10-18 knots.

All of that means it will be a stressful one for Tacticians and a busy one for the Race Officials. Postponements may well be the order of the day.

There will be some boats keen to postpone nothing and secure their leads on the table. In Division Zero, the TP52, Cougar II, and Elliott 44CR, Veloce, will want to sew up their very handy leads. For Division One, four boats own the podium places across the three categories. They are lead by the Adams 10, Executive Decision, then The Doyen (Lou Abrahams) and his Challenge. Swordfish Trombone have third place in IRC and AMS, with Audacious holding down third in EHC.

Division Two is really all about the well-sailed Surprise, Apache, who worked tirelessly in the testing conditions last time and Godzilla. The latter take to the ocean regularly and are very much a well-honed outfit. Where's Wal? and Hush also feature in EHC.

Intrusion leads Division Three in IRC, but it is Rhiannon, Double Malt and Footloose that hold all the other podium spots between them. Well done to those crews. Intrusion, Double Malt and Rhiannon all finished well in the last heat on February 6, when the seas made it very hard going for vessels under 30 feet, indeed.

Actually, as hard as it has been to try and predict the wind, it will also be difficult to lay and hold a course. Personally, I'd be keeping a look out for the change of course blackboard during Saturday's racing in the Club Marine Series.

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