The sea breeze turned up for Lacepede Bay Sailing Clubs 20km per lap Earthmovers race sponsored by Michael Hill earthmoving. At 1pm in about 13 knots of wind and two foot chop, on Saturday 18th of April, 12 high performance catamarans from as far afield as Adelaide and Mount Gambier set out 5km upwind from the sailing club to the first mark at Butchers Gap drain. Danny James on his F16 “Infectious” made great time from the start followed closely by Simon Porteous on his F16 “Zhen”, Dave Kirkpatrick on his A class “Super Sizzler”, Darren Kopp on his Mozzie “Bullet” with a tight scrum behind them before they all split looking for clean air with boats going everywhere. “Infectious was the first out when it hit a big clump of weed that had been dislodged by the midweek storm and finished up on the beach. Once the field rounded the first mark it was a 10 km downwind run to the Long Beach drain, on the wire for those with spinnakers. Steven Kroon on his F18 “Painter and Docker” soon overhauled everyone, followed by “Zhen”, Neil Ferguson on his 5.7 Taipan “ Men behaving badly”, Jeff Southall on his 5.7 Taipan “4Wildthings”, Dean King on his F16 “Woof” and a tight field behind. Once down at Long Beach the breeze picked up to a blustery 15 knots. Neil Ferguson noticed some dust on his sails and gybed “Men behaving badly” straight over to make them shiny again, once they righted the cat they found they were looking at the mark they had overrun and were able to get back in the race, Simon Porteous was next over with weed making him unable to right the cat until on the beach. Jeff Southall was feeling great, new to him cat, first time with spin in a breeze and now second behind Steve Kroon on his F18. This elation was short lived when they realised they had missed the mark by 3km too far downwind and had to beat up wind 3km back to the mark. With their race over they sat off the beach with “Painter and Docker” until “Zhen” was back on the water then the four of them had a race back to the club only completing one lap and travelling about 30km. Meanwhile all the other boats found the mark and couldn’t believe their eyes with nearly all the spin cats out of contention “Men behaving badly” was the only one still in contention but was well behind. At the first rounding of the 20km course
Tim Hollingsworth, 5.8 Nacra 1635 “Two up” was 1st 1hr.36.18:
Neil Ferguson, Taipan 5.7 with spin 225 “Men behaving badly” 2nd 1hr.38.54:
Michael Vaughan, 5.8 Nacra 1633 “Ten Tenths” 3rd 1hr.41.29:
Dave Kirkpatrick, A class 771 “Super Sizzler” 4th 1hr.42.05:
Darren Kopp, Mozzie 1782 “Bullet” 5th 1hr.46.10:
Evan Steele, Cobra with spin 569 “Dream on” 6th 1hr.51.40
Graham Parker, Stingray 527 “Popeye” 7th 2hr.03.33
Steven Kroon, F18 Infusion 617 “Painter and Docker” 8th 2hr.05.58
Simon Porteous, F16 Blade 405 “Zhen” 9th 2.09.36
Jeff Southall, 5.7 Taipan with spin 187 “4Wildthings” 10th 2hr.11.33
Dean King, 4.9 Taipan with spin 153 “Woof” 11th 2hr.14.25
Danny James Taipan F16 332 “Infectious” DNF
Most of the earlier cats tried to complete a second lap but only four completed the full 40km course with the wind dropping off in the later afternoon, result being
Line honours Tim Hollingsworth, 5.8 Nacra 1635 “Two up” 3hr.20.01
2nd Neil Ferguson, Taipan 5.7 with spin 225 “Men behaving badly” 3hr.24.55
3rd Michael Vaughan, 5.8 Nacra 1633 “Ten Tenths” 3hr.34.07
4th Darren Kopp, Mozzie 1782 “Bullet” 3hr.49.07 Giving Darren the handicap win for a well sailed race.
“Two up took 2nd on handicap, “Ten Tenths” took 3rd and “Men Behaving badly took 4th on handicap.
Unfortunately this reporter had sailed so far off the course he couldn’t report on any of the second lap except for the finish but it was a closely fought duel to the end that “Two up” won by correctly reading the wind and heading way out to sea for the lay line to the finish, with both crew on the wire making good time whilst the other cats made multiple tacks in little wind close to shore. Special thanks to all the non sailing volunteers, on the rescue boats, in the tower, on the shore and in the canteen who made the event work. The notable quote for the day was Butch and Rob Copping first time rescue boat drivers, not knowing that we got lost said after the race “Gee you spinnaker boats go a long way past the mark to round it”. Next year we’ll have bigger marks to round.

More photos sorry about the quality but all we got

More photos too

More photos again

That 13km downwind on the wire most of the way still left me with a massive smile on my face, despite the big stuff up my navigator made.

At least I know not to follow painter and docker all the way up the coorong again.

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