Debut Whitsunday twilight race

With a birds eye view from the VMR Whitsunday radio room, I watch an excavator extract another Tropical Cyclone Debbie victim from the mangroves. Just like our vessel, it will have to undergo a few repairs before sailing again. While we wait for Lady K to be back in action, it's time to reflect on our debut Whitsunday Sailing Club twilight race last month.

Light conditions for the start

We gave ourselves plenty of time to get organised and get Lady K into the water, and while tied up alongside the jetty we picked up an extra passenger. Not that we could really afford the extra weight given that there was little breeze, but to refuse would have not been in keeping with the spirit of the afternoon. It turned out that Holger was from Sylt, an island off Germany in the North Sea that I visited many many years ago, and he was President of their sailing club. Small world.

Being a multi-hull, Lady K is in Division 1 and needs to complete three laps around the triangle course. Due to the lack of wind, and that we are a small vessel, we were very slow in sailing to the windward mark - we made about 2 knots. The only other multihull on the course was Mad Max, a 33 foot Grainger, and we were delighted we managed to round the windward mark before being lapped.

Trying to keep Mad Max at bay as we approach the windward mark

We picked up a little speed going dead down wind, but not enough to keep the monohulls away.
Eventually we completed our first lap just as the wind picked up with the rain squalls moving through. Raincoats on and a cheer for the wind, we were finally moving at the rapid pace of 4 knots. Not enough to get us around the full course though as the finish horn sounded for us at the end of the second lap - just as Mad Max completed their fourth (they are so fast they get to do four). Fair enough; it was getting dark by then.

Monohulls are catching up

A wet, but faster second lap.

We still have a few things to iron out (much more so now thanks to Debbie!), but we enjoyed our first twilight race and look forward to many more. We proudly accepted our second prize and was politely informed that we only ever have to complete two laps of the course from now on. Guess we'll have a good handicap then!