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

In Australia at around about early July, most serious southern Australian keelboat sailors start casting their gaze north for the annual pilgrimage up the east coast and into the warmer climes of Queensland.

The beginning of this journey is the 384 nm Sydney to Gold Coast Race run by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in late July and then entails the Airlie Beach Regatta followed quickly by the Hamilton Island Race week in late August.

I was fortunate enough to take my usual place as tactician in Rob Hanna's Shogun for the aforementioned Sydney to Gold Coast race, but this year it was a brand new Shogun that we were sailing.

Rob had recently purchased a Rogers 46, an exciting new design from the board of UK designer Simon Rogers. This was to be its first serious hit out following a few local races.

Rob in typical fashion left no stone unturned in his desire to do well. The Sydney to Gold Coast race has a reputation for tricky navigating in the lighter conditions and when it decides to get fresh it blows hard from behind. Matty Hayes, who I had crossed tacks with many times in my youth, was recruited on the basis he was known as a "good driver in heavy traffic" and with Bryan Northcote navigating in his umpteenth gold coast race the regular local crew was well reinforced.

Race day dawned with a forecast of medium tailwinds easing up the coast and a long race was expected. Seventy three boats greeted the starter's gun and these included several top boats at our size, the very successful Reichl Pugh 46's "XLR8" and "Hardys Secret Mens Business" along with the Corby 49 "Limit" would ensure close boat on boat racing all the way. Not to mention Robs previous DK46 now racing as "Exile".

The downwind start did not provide too many dramas and were able to keep our wind clear and sail down the beautiful Sydney Harbour and out the heads in good style.

Once outside it was champagne sailing with 15-18 knots astern and we were able to move ahead of "XLR8"and stay in close proximity to the Cookson 50 "Quantum Racing". We felt comfortable with our position as we sailed into the night under full power with our A2 spinnaker and staysail combination working well. As the night came on the breeze began to build, we were not too concerned as maximum forecast wind was about 25 knots. It quickly reached this 25knots and necessitated a change down to the fractional A5 spinnaker as we plowed along surfing up to 20 knots. The wind continued to build into the night and at a bit over 32 knots the A5 was dispensed with and we ran under spinnaker staysail and full main waiting for the wind to abate and re-hoist the spinnaker. These was not the case as the wind slowly increased to show gusts of up to 42 knots, regular runs of 25 knots plus were made with a top speed of 29 knots recorded.

The boat handled well throughout all this and was a dream to steer and despite being buried many times just kept flying through the waves. In fact it was commented later it was like watching the highlight package of a Volvo Race. Down stairs water was spraying in through the hatchway and some deck fittings and splash boards were fitted and the pumps manned soon brought things under control.

On through the night we raced and as dawn approached it began to moderate and we re-hoisted our spinnakers and began to work inshore to position ourselves for the afternoon sea breeze.

The 6am sked was eagerly awaited and we were very pleased to find ourselves about 8 miles ahead of "XLR8" and over 20 miles ahead of "Hardy's Secret Mens Business" and "Limit". Not far ahead were "Quantum Racing" and the TP52's so we knew we were in a good spot if we could keep pushing.

The day was one of many sail changes with all sorts of combinations and the crew worked really hard, at one stage I was thinking we must have looked like a Vendee Globe single hander as we had an A2 Spinnaker up with a Code 0 and spinnaker staysail both furled up ready to go and a Jib Top in the track for a quick hoist!

Situated about 2 miles offshore we had a really good run and opened up a few more miles on the boats behind us.

As the second night fell and the win became fickle we moved right into the coast expecting a land breeze and it when it did come in at about 8 knots off we shot at 10 knots boat speed under our Code 0, I can remember days when 46' sailing boats needed 20 knots to do 10 knots boat speed!!

A quick look at yacht tracker showed we were right in the hunt as we closed in on the last thirty miles but it was not to be. We were met by a big windless hole at Cape Byron and sat struggling to keep the boat moving. We saw our chance of saving our time on the RP66 "Wild Joe" slip away. A light zephyr did spring up and bring us in to get second place ahead of "Wild Oats".

A little disappointed but that's ocean racing, we won our division by over two hours and beat a lot of really good boats.

Thanks to Rogers Yacht Design for a nice boat and thanks to Rob Hanna for another great experience.

Now it's onto the Fastnet Race in another Rogers 46 "Danbury Wines" that Rob has chartered and I am sure that will be another kettle of fish. I am sure we won't see any palm trees waving at the end of that one.

Tony Bull

Quantum, Geelong