Just one week after the Paynesville Classic Boat Rally and I was travelling back up to the Lakes for the Marlay Point Overnight Race.  Not driving, but as a passenger, thank goodness.  Collin Theodore lost his usual crew to a back injury, so he asked me if I’d do him the favour of taking Jim’s place.  I agreed on one condition – no Captain Bligh.

So, I met Col at a factory in Chelsea where he was loading up his ute for the weekend.  One item in the pile was his newly acquired roof tent, which was where I was going to be sleeping on the first night.  Col would be sleeping on the boat.  As it turned out, although the tent was comfortable enough, I was kept awake by some sports boat guys who were dropping the F bomb and C bomb, screaming, laughing and singing until 4am.  The next morning, it was pretty obvious they were not very popular with the rest of the campers.  Selfish bastards!

We got the boat into the water and then in amongst the reeds early in the day, so Col could catch the first of the shuttle buses back from Paynesville.  Andrew P had arrived and whereas he is normally very quick to set up his boat, he was stymied buy an overly officious safety inspector who was also very, very, very slow at his job.  I could read the frustration in Andrew’s face as his chance of catching the early shuttle slipped away from him.

We attended the pre-race briefing and I was impressed to see the award for most Marlay Points presented to 96-year-old Ray Cole who was competing in his 33^rd MPONR.  He was sailing with his friend, also 96 years old.  I hope their longevity is a result of sailing and not of clean living.

With the briefing done, we made moves towards our boats.  Tarquin was sitting on mud and someone had to push her out to deeper water.  Yeah, we know who got that gig.  Finally, with enough water under us, Col started his ridiculous little motor and, apart from leaking an alarming amount of fuel, we were away.

Because of the wind direction, Col thought it would be a good idea to do something different and cross the line close to the port mark, instead of his usual starboard mark start.  It seemed that everybody else had the same idea and we crossed the line in a jumble of boats and wide eyed sailors.  Some clown in a sports boat came from behind screaming that everybody in front of him was to give way to him – probably the same clowns from the previous night.  Idiot! Once out on to the lake proper, we made slow, but steady progress towards Plover Point.  It’s funny, but it seemed that we were way off the pace and too far away from the rest of the fleet, but we reached the beginning of McLennan Strait in a large group with what looked like an even larger group coming behind us.  The wind dropped away and Col sent me down below to sleep. Ha! The noise of him thumping the rudder from side to side and clambering all over the cockpit put an end to that.  I gave up, untangled myself from the cramped cabin’s contents and joined the skipper topside. We got the slightest of winds (on the nose) and began tacking back and forth all the way through the strait for hours and hours on end.  For an old fat guy, that was damned hard work.

At one point we were passed in the strait by Richard and then Andrew.  Eventually, we left Holland’s Landing behind us and entered the expanse of Lake Victoria.  At this point I went back to bed for an hour or so of sleep whilst Collin very slowly made his towards Storm Point.  We didn’t seem that far away from it when I went below, but we still hadn’t passed when I returned to the cockpit.  Col wasn’t happy with the progress.  Not Happy at all.

Midway between Storm and Waddy Points, Col succumbed and went down below for some sleep.  I was having some luck picking the wind – there wasn’t much – and made some movement through the fleet.  There was a Duncanson 25 that I was focused on and each time our tracks crossed I was getting just that bit closer.  Finally, as we neared Pelican Point, I was in front of him and I could bask in wonderous glory, as we left him further behind with each tack.  Hmmm….I’m a little more competitive than I thought I was.  Some of my radiant glory must have seeped into the cabin, because it woke Collin and he came back outside to join me.

The next few hours were spent chasing the darker patches of wind on water and spying out who was where in the fleet.  The really important ones were Andrew, Richard and Peter.  We never seemed to make up ground on Peter and Sarah, although there was a brief spark of joy as we saw a trio of Cygnet 20s languishing by the southern shore and Andrew Padgett sail into a still patch on the northern one. 

Such sparks of joy were quickly dashed, then shone, then dashed again, as the fickle winds came and went, then came and went and so on.  There was a big group of boats that seemed to be stuck at Point Turner and, when the wind finally came in for us, they still just sat there in still waters.  Approaching Bluff Head, the winds became flukey again and we all took turns making progress then stopping, making progress then stopping again.  The slower boats had ridden the following breeze and caught up with the faster boats that had been wallowing at Point Turner for hours. 

The end result was that the bulk of the fleet crossed the line within a couple of minutes of each other after fifteen and a half hours of sailing.  It was reported that all six Cygnet 20s finished within six seconds of each other.  The four club boats – an RL28, a Sunmaid 20, Cygnet 20 and Hartley TS18 –  crossed the line within eighty-seven seconds, first to last.

As you can imagine it was a very congested finish line.  We were gunnel to gunnel with other boats, the wind was befuddled, the ferry was about to head across the Strait and Collin’s absurd little outboard would not start.  Have you experienced white knuckled sailing at just half a knot?  I now have.

Once past the ferry, we considered trying to sail to the King Street ramp, but fortunately Andrew offered to tow us back to the other ramp (now known as the Boat Rally Ramp of Death) with his lovely little antique outboard.  With Tarquin now back on her trailer, Col and I went to sign off and have a much-anticipated breakfast at the clubhouse.  Afterwards, we slogged our way through the hottest de-rig either of us has ever experienced.  I tell you, it was deadly hot.  Unbearably so.

Will I do another one? Yeah, probably.