2013 Surf to City
By Peter Hackett
The 2013 Surf to City was memorable not for the usual crash and bash record breaking times, but for the length of time we were out there going for the gold. We got a story into SailWorld talking it up before the event, and depending where and when you finished, it was still a pretty good race.
On IntrIIgue we had a nice Saturday social ride across the bay and down the Broadwater hitting 18 knots 2 sail reaching in the flat water and nice gusts.
The usual few drinks helped prepare us for a glassy race on the Sunday. Crossing tacks with the fast boats was again a lot of fun this year, and our GPS showed at least 150 on the inside course. There were some great raftups with interesting language in a few places, and 50boats stock together near Krummel Passage was a bit of a laugh until the last few boats into the traffic jam tried Boat Billiards and banged a few out of the pack. As usual it was delightful to get out in the bay for some teasing puffs and tight spinnaker runs. We finished at 6.45 with enough twilight to get into the creek, and the new facilities of the QCYC rebuild were most welcome to all crews.
We were fortunate enough to take advantage of the conditions for a very narrow OMR victory of 2 minutes over Coco Loco and New Horizons, a nice hat-trick again for trimarans in those conditions. PCF went to Demonstrator, a well set up Ostac Tramp sailed by Bill Ferguson who spins a yarn that he is a farmer from the Downs so we go gentle on his handicap. It was great this year to see Bill get his perpetual trophy from Tia Grant, daughter of Dennis Grant, a multihull legend who had the idea to first run this great race. Another local boat Masta Blasta got 2ndwith us 3rdon PHS.
Phil Day and I deserve a big bottle of rum for concocting PHS handicaps that finished the first 10 boats within 18 minutes!
The outside guys will have a different story, and Phil (who is in a lot of the news this year all around the country) nearly had his boat towed in by the lifesavers for surfing between the flags in an effort to get some favourable wind along the coast. OMR in this fleet was Rhythmic, Rush Hour, Attitudeand PHF Rush Hour, Rhythmic, McMoggy.
For full results see: www.qcyc.com.au/go/s2c/Home.aspx
For the Sailworld article see: www.sail-world.com/Australia/Surf-to-City-Yacht-Race-2013---Upwind-all-day/105627
