GETTING
THERE IS HALF THE...fun?
Ah...the
1997 Fielder's Goolwa-Milang Lake Alexandrina Classic.
A chance to salve the bruised egos, to redeem the reputation of
light schooners, and to staunch the flow of wet remarks following
Flying Tadpole II's performance in January's Milang to
Goolwa
two-miles-offshore race.
The preparation...
Recovering from
the Milang-Goolwa debacle, we'd
just about got the boat to rights, but needed a staysail to replace
the one now in the first stages of fossilization on the bed of
Lake Alexandrina. It hadn't happened
because the insurers hadn't yet come through.
As crew, FT2
assembled her 1996 winners, all experienced,
and not one of them maimed, halt or infirm, or even mildly distracting.
No
matter, lethal sheds from which nothing ever gets thrown out have
their advantages. Into the dank corners went the intrepid schoonerpeople
and lo - exhumed in all its black-plastic-underlay-old-anchor-rope-ducting-tape
glory was the original staysail, with which Flying Tadpole
II commenced her reign of terror on the Murray Lakes. Shed
too was a brief tear for the honest redbacks deprived of their
home, before whistling in the mudlarks for a savoury luncheon.
The weather...
Flying Tadpole
overnighted upriver at Clayton,
the worst night we've ever spent on the water--stinking hot, no
wind, sticky, a ceaseless mozzie drone and little sleep. The race-day
forecast was for SE to NE winds 7-10 knots with a light sea breeze
later in the day, fine and hot to 39 degrees (102F for all you
lot in the non-metric world). Anyone with half a brain would obviously
take this to mean 25 knot W to NW winds knots turning to southerlies
at 25+ knots, with rain to follow, but since none of the crew
was lobotomised, the translation wasn't made until it was too
late...
Enter the Seagull...
The plan was to
motor from Clayton to the start at the upriver end of Goolwa,
but B. Seagull was not happy at the prospect of work. Thoughts
of a cooling swim followed by deep draughts of WD40 oscillated
through its crankcase. So its morning motor test was a bit worrying,
much smoke and fury but not too much action. We left Clayton on
motor anyway in the lightest of NE zephyrs, allowing over two
hours to get there - plenty of time for five miles and a couple
of motor rebuilds.
Seagull of course
died in the first 100 yards, as the fuel tap was still off. On
with the fuel, so next the carburetor unscrewed after a mile.
That fixed, and the skipper holding a hefty Footprints wrench
as a barely veiled threat, there wasn't much else a Seagull could
do other than keep spinning its tank vent shut and going asthmatic
in a vain plea for mercy.
Lost on a lee shore...
A bit further
down river, and in the open, the wind backed north-westerly, and
built, and built, and built, and kept on building. The Seagull
took fright and started trying to work properly, but with the
whitecaps appearing, Flying Tadpole was pushed further
and further toward the lethal mixture of mud and limestone boulders
of the southeastern lee shore.
In the strongest
7 knot wind we've ever experienced, with reeds looming to leeward
and Seagull straining, there came a point where we couldn't turn
the bow into the wind, and started going backwards. Seagull fainted
in shock at this, but the anchor went over very rapidly, halting
the boat in a little rocky embayment, reeds close by, and shallow
mud with water weeds within half a boatlength.
With visions of
failing even to make the race start, wind at Force 100, whitecaps
everywhere, stuck on a lee shore, an abused Seagull with its prop
in mud, is it any wonder that the hard-pressed skipper went paranoid?
The laid-back crew suggested sailing out, so after the skipper
spat a few more chips and looked at the clearances with a jaundiced
eye, the deep-reefed main was hoisted, FT2 was hauled up
to her anchor, and she sailed out just skimming the reeds - very
neat, and going in the wrong direction...
Flying Tadpole was
able to tack and point back to Goolwa once safely out in the channel.
The wind was really howling and spray was going everywhere, but
mainly over the crew, so we called the motor to assist with the
scrap of sail. The Seagull must have been feeling desperate, because
it roared away, shrugging off the spray and backwash coming through
the motor well and filling up the stern storage compartments.
The start...
We made the sheltered
start area with plenty of time to spare, thus proving that even
paranoid skippers must occasionally get a break. Flying Tadpole
II was uncharacteristically subdued for the downwind race
start. We knew what the wind was going to be like and were in
no mood to be munched by big-bully GRP boats dubiously controlled.
So FT2 hung back 300m downstream, left her run for the
start to the last 50 seconds, and started under reefed main only,
nothing else. She still ended up in the thick of things as the
start hooter went...
A quarter of Flying Tadpole's usual sail area not being really competitive, we
hoisted the foresail while still in comparative shelter. FT2
then surged out into the full wind, to the accompaniment of happy
twang-snap noises and ripping sounds from aluminium masts breaking
and unreefed mainsails tearing, and the odd crash and scream as
boats rounded up and collided.
The race...
The ride was fast,
a little hairy but mainly uneventful to Rat Island, about half
race distance, by which time Flying Tadpole had left behind
all but one of her direct competitors and was working through
the earlier divisions. It was still very hot, and big drinks were
being regularly dispensed. The aft cockpit crew had a pint of
cordial ready to pass to the dehydrating helmsman, when the 25+
knot NW wind instantaneously became a 25+ knot SE wind. The resultant
tangle of bodies, sheets and tillers all awash with sticky cordial
in Flying Tadpole was a mere trifle compared to the surrounding
chaos, as boats rounded up and demolished their bows on other
boats, spinnakers exploded and undeleted expletives blew away
on the wind.
Nicely snug under
foresail and reefed main, FT2 forged ahead, not quite as
fast as her crew wanted. So up went the magic garbag staysail,
with the ducting tape which holds it together promptly starting
to unpeel in the wind. Alas, long unfamiliarity with this particular
sail meant it was hoisted upside down, forming a sort of crab-claw,
but it filled well and Flying Tadpole planed away...
The rest of the
race was straightforward with the wind finally settling to about
22-25 knots southerly and the temperature dropping. Out on the
main part of the Lake, the staysail was kept in reserve, the crew
relaxed while the skipper fought the tiller, and FT2 shouldered
her way through a short but totally confused chop.
Highlights which
stay in the mind: seeing a solo cat pitchpole at 15 knots, its
helmsman scrambling like a demented spider on the vertical hull,
bringing her back and taking off again...watching our remaining
competition throwing on more and more sail in an attempt to catch
us and getting into more and more trouble as a result... Flying
Tadpole II surfing diagonally down one 3-foot wave only to
meet another coming from the opposite direction...Lake Alexandrina
is not a pleasant stretch of water...
Success is the sweetest
revenge...
Despite cries
at the post-race presentations of "get a life...get a
cabin...what boat?", Flying Tadpole II finally
received her long-sought-after line honours, and the handicap
honours for her division, and the fastest
both outright and on corrected time of all trailable yachts on
the direct Goolwa to Milang course (gloat).
After that, we
found it quite easy to ignore those numerous unkind souls who
cruelly asked whether we'd gone for a swim in this race too....
