Despite the increased restriction on sailing events due to the Covid 19 virus a large fleet was able to take to the water at Balmain today for a glorious Friday afternoon sail around the West Harbour. There are a lot of people well past retirement age enjoying these events and to the organizers we extend our grateful thanks. For today we were down to three Zone D sailors. For those uninitiated in the rituals of Covid 19 sailing zones that mean we all live in as odd quadrilateral designated by Sailing Australia NSW as a zone where we are allowed to associate for sailing purposes. It is fortunate that for our Wednesday sailing we are predominately Zone D people and for the upcoming twilight series also Zone D persons.
The wind was favorable for our designated start time and by the first island rounding we were hard on the stern of those that started a minute earlier. That sense of achievement was soon extinguished in the cut and thrust of the windward work up the Hunters Hill shore as Irukandji found the right side of a couple of wind shifts and went on to win the afternoon.
Our next crack at fame came on the reach along the Balmain shore back past the club when we went wide and found more wind to run through the lee of a large proportion of the fleet. Odyssey was just in front and Avalon to windward but we hung on to their tails for the run down the narrow passage between Drummoyne Yacht Club and the islands. At the “No Loitering”sign where Irukandji parked last week we ran out of wind which was extremely disappointing as we watched Odyssey and Avalon charge off into the distance for second and third place respectively. Meanwhile we had caught Van Demon and were having one hell of a fight with here for one place in a friendly Friday sail. They skimmed across our bow and tacked onto starboard giving us dirty air. When they tacked away we hung on to a progressive lift and came back strongly so they tacked again to close out the passage to the line. We dared the wrath of the sailing gods and drove to the very edge of the Cockatoo Island wall and tacked back trying to get a starboard call on them but alas they snuck through for fifth place leaving us pretty pleased with a sixth place for the afternoon. It was perhaps fitting that we started together and finished together and in the interval had a very enjoyable afternoon on the water playing for sheep stations not.
Our mate Geoff was out on the water running the motor on Capriole and took some great sailing photos for our enjoyment.
The genoa we were using for the afternoon is one we took off of the old Passion so it has done a lot of miles. It was built by Ben Gemmell back in the day and we had it repaired late last year and put aside as a cruising sail. When the Covid 19 virus struck we pulled the sail out of retirement into service as it is high clewed and skims the life lines. The repairs by Sydney Sailmakers have added years to the life of the old Genoa.
The other Covid 19 related change was to remove the fat head from the main so we could sail with a smaller crew and that has been a success as far as enjoyable sailing goes. This is the first good photo of the modified mainsail.
Nice photo of Passion X in one of the fresher patches of wind. Photo courtesy Geoff Lucas
Trying to get some twist in the sails for the light shifty conditions. Photo courtesy Geoff Lucas