All the year I have been looking forward to the Bridge to Breakers Regatta at the Big River Sailing Club. I reckoned that Little Dragon could tag along from Harwood to Iluka keeping out of the way of the real racers. But my mast is still "in transit" from Melbourne.Peter Barnes from Brunswick Heads owns a Farr 6000 (just like my Farr 5000 but 20 ft not 17ft). He came to my rescue just when I thought I was destined to be a landlubber and invited me aboard for the weekend. I really covet his boat but I keep telling myself that it is too heavy to tow behind my Subaru Forrester.
We left Harwood in a strong wind around 2 hrs ahead of the official start and it took us over 2 hrs to get to Iluka. We dubbed ourselves "the spectator fleet".
We anchored in Iluka Harbour and boiled the billy positioning ourselves to watch the fleet race past the entrance to the harbour to the buoy not far downstream and then come screaming back again on the way home. Once the way was clear we set off back to Harwood. The wind had come up further so we had a reef in. Even reefed it was an exhilarating sail. It must have been exhausting for the racing fleet none of whom reefed.
The next day the wind had risen still further - some were talking of a near gale but that may be a bit of an exaggeration. Peter and I decided to watch the racing from the verandah - a great spectacle with all classes from Lasers to Hartley 16s. Unfortunately there were several breakages of both equipment and crew.
Thanks again Peter.
