Quantum Sails Australia - Cruising Genoas, Mainsails, Multihulls, Spinnakers, Storm Sails, Racing Headsails, Main Sails, Spinnakers

In the Southern Australian state of Victoria, the annual Queenscliff to Flinders Yacht Race is a significant race. It represents the coming of the summer season and the close of the sometimes icy winter sailing programmes.

As is the case with all the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria's ocean going races, the start is located just inside the notorious Port Phillip Heads. It can be quite a hazardous piece of water and accordingly most races are scheduled to start on the "slack water" where the tide is manageable. As the thirty three mile Queenscliff to Flinders is one of the shorter races, it was scheduled to start at the surprisingly civilised time of 10.30am.

A fleet of 53 boats greeted the starters gun in a light Northeasterly wind which meant a spinnaker run to the heads, around corsair rock and out into Bass Strait and along the coast, past Cape Schank and around the Fairway Buoy leading into Westernport Bay and then into the finish off Flinders Jetty.

I was fortunate enough to get a ride on Paul Buchholz's latest "eXtasea", a DK46 which was having its first serious race under his ownership. Previously known as "Zephyra" this boat had been very successful in the USA and was powered by a full set of Quantum Fusion M sails.

As we prepared for starting we noticed there was still a bit of flood tide running so we chose to come in on starboard and gybe around the start boat and head straight for the shallows near Point Nepean. This tactic was employed by most of the fleet with some choosing the Nepean side with us and others ran along the Point Lonsdale side. At the coming together point at Corsair Rock we were in a good spot just behind the TP52 "Cougar" and the Farr 52 "Goldfinger". The Bull 12m "Bullistic" was also just leading us after doing well in the light running.

As we headed into the light 5-8 knot breeze we dropped the R1 asymmetric spinnaker and unfurled the Code O for the fetch along the coast. We eventually managed to slide under "Bullistic" and appeared to make some ground on "Goldfinger". The TP52 had moved off to a handy lead.

As we advanced along the coast, the wind became more and more fickle and eventually bombed completely. We could see boats behind us carry some wind up to us and close dramatically until they fell into a dead calm as well.

After bobbing around for a few hours with the bulk of the crew lying down on the cabin floor to lower our centre of gravity and minimize the effect of the light slop on the sails, we saw a light easterly moving slowly in along the coast.

It was greatly savored when it finally arrived and we began to move again, this time leaving the boats behind us waiting for the breeze to get to them, yachting is a great leveller!

The easterly breeze strengthened to about 10-12 knots and provided perfect DK weather, upwind in these conditions they punch well above their weight. We had a great running battle with "Goldfinger", at times closing on her but she eventually began to move away.

As we closed on the Fairway buoy we took a time on "Cougar" and realized we were very much in contention.

Then disaster struck, as we rounded the buoy I was steering and the crew was poised for a quick hoist of the R2 spinnaker, seeing our bow pass the mark I called for the hoist and instead of seeing the head of the spinnaker snaking its way up the outside of the jib, the whole sail flew out of the bag and wrapped itself around the mark and tore into two. The crew were up to the task and quickly had the torn kite down and replaced with the R1 and penalty turns completed in a very short space of time.

The final run was a frustrating one as we could see first "Cougar" then "Goldfinger" slow down to a crawl as they approached the finish line. The other concern was the sight of "Challenge" the extremely well sailed Sydney 38 approaching the Fairway Buoy well ahead of many larger boats and looking a real handicap threat.

We chose to stay off the land as long as we could and gybed on a tight angle to try and close the shore and finish with as much momentum as we could. We almost made it and slowed to a halt about 3 boatlengths from the finish, sitting there for a few minutes before a light zephyr appeared and gave us just enough to slide across the line.

Down with sails and motor on we headed home and saw the breeze was dying right across the course and stalling the challenge from "Challenge".

So we knew we had won IRC A and settled in for a quiet drink around the galley table on our return trip through the mostly becalmed fleet, it came as a pleasant surprise when the official results appeared to see we had also won PHD division.

Well done to all aboard and hope it is the first of many for Paul and his crew.

Tony Bull

Quantum Sails Geelong