I wrote this to put in the Mozzie newsletter, the race as I saw it.

Earth Movers race, 18 Apr 2009, Lacepede Sailing Club, Kingston, SA
A race between bouys located 5km North and 5km south of the club, two laps gave a 40km race but as it turned out to be a windward/leeward course actual distance I sailed was 56.8km and a full lap as the crow flies was 21.4km giving an actual race distance of 42.8km. The deviation to sail through the start/fin line made the course a bit longer.
Two Nacra5.8’s, 2 Taipan 5.7’s with spin, 3 F16’s (one on a FCA Blade, the others Taipans with mods), an “A”, Stingray, Cobra with Spinnaker, Nacra F18 Infusion and me on the Mozzie, turns out I was the highest yardstick cat and one of only 4 racing without spinnaker. 10km downwind was going to be interesting!
The wind came in on time as predicted, 10 to 12 knots from south west with windier patches up to 15 to 17knots and lots of shifts. We started, I was wrestling with a large chunk of kelp and started last on port heading out to sea to avoid more of it, the fleet beat up the coast picking our way through big chunks of kelp, I went off shore up to 1km at times to avoid the kelp. I noted Danny on the F16T4.9, tipped over inshore ( failed rudder system lead to loss of control ). The F18 was making the most of it and streaking away from the fleet, chased by the Blade and 5.8s. I was working my way back into the race and rounded the easily found windward mark 6th or 7th. Downwind the Blade went inshore and the other spin cats went offshore. After the race Simon(BladeF16) mentioned he was doing 17knots downwind and pacing the F18, makes the 10.5knots I was sailing at seem slow but I was enjoying surfing the waves running deeper then the other cats and watching the race unfold so it wasn’t all bad.
As it turns out my chance to “look around” helped me find the leeward mark, well guided by the Nacra5.8s and “A” I was chasing, all the spinnaker boats except the Cobra and T5.7 sailed past the mark and another 3km down the coast before they sussed out what had happened, so effectively, they were out of the race.
I decided to sail through the finish line to get a time after my first lap and then continue for another 20km, the Nacras went off shore while I played the shifts up the coastline finding the kelp had mostly gone however didn’t manage to catch them. After a slower downwind the wind died and started to swing through 30degrees for my 5km beat home into the chop, thinking my race for a handicap win was on the line as the Nacras were finishing in more wind I worked at finding a way through the chop and finished sitting in with 5 knots of boatspeed, took me 3hr 49mins. to complete the race with the first Nacra 29 minutes ahead.
Only 4 boats finished the race, first Nacra5.8 sailed by Tim Hollingsworth 3h.20.01, second was a T5.7 with spinnaker sailed by Neil Ferguson 3h.24.55, third Nacra5.8 sailed by Michael Vaughan, 3hr.34.07 and me on Bullet 3hr.49.07. Deciding I couldn’t have beaten the Nacras as they finished with two on the wire I was stunned when I found out I had beaten them by 5 minutes on handicap after a 4 hour long race.
The club put on a challenging race, I enjoyed it, the food and beer afterwards were also good and cheap.
I will be back next year, Kingston is only 3 hours from Adelaide and 5 from Melbourne, the prevailing wind and flat water is ideal for the spinnaker cats and I was lucky their navigation error gave me a good result. I hope next year they can find the marks and finish the race, the results will be interesting….
Darryn
Mosquito
Bullet