The Longbeach Buoy Saga
It was unfortunate that the first scheduled running of the Longbeach Challenge between MMYC and CSC was unable to be held back in January because of a very dodgy weather forecast. Even more unfortunate was the fact that the forecast didn’t eventuate! For that reason, Peter Banham being our most intrepid sailor, decided to do the course anyway. The night was warm and balmy and much, much quieter than had been predicted. Around midnight, back at the Holter’s, we were able to detect lights which looked like a yacht heading towards the Creek. Sharyn, Eric, Mark and Jenny thought it would be nice to walk back down to the club and greet Peter on his return. The news from our intrepid sailor was “The Spoil Ground Buoy is nowhere to be seen”.
So began a search by several members to locate this rather important first marker of our Twilight Race, of the Longbeach Challange due to be run in a few weeks. Soon after, Eric Clark onboard the Carrum 2 Rescue Boat, accompanied by his daughter Hayley, Sharyn, Mark and I headed out from Patterson River in a strongish SE wind to locate the elusive buoy. It was decided that if we went through the start line at MMYC we could then line up the course and head right to the buoy. We got rather wet from spray as we made our way up the coast but it was a hot day and - what’s a bit of water! However by the time we reached Mentone we found that the motor was unable to give us full revs and with the conditions as they were, decided it would be rather fool hardy to continue on to the Spoil Ground. We were heading back to Patterson River but when it took us nearly an hour to return to Mordi Creek and we were by now totally drenched as we crashed through every wave - we chose to end our investigative trip there.
Greg Power on Quicksilver was the next to make the journey. On his return he proudly sent an Email to all saying that he had found the Buoy and provided us with co-ordinates - which upon checking would have put us somewhere near SYC !! Then a second trip by Greg. And he assured us he had marked the correct spot this time and as such distributed these co-ordinates at one of our Thursday night Twilight races. As we didn’t race ourselves that night, Mark decided plot the co-ordinates onto the chart while they raced to see if the Buoy had actually been moved during the Channel Deepening some months earlier. He found the co-ordinates Greg had given us put us - in the middle of Moorabbin Airport!!
This prompted a session around the chart. Present at this session were the sages of MMYC Sailing - Greg Power, Mark Holter, Derek Haagsma, Peter Banham, David Moate and Eric Clark. The banter around the chart was hilarious as witnessed by Sharyn and myself. It was very interesting to see how many pairs of glasses and +1’s came out in order to read what was in front of them!
Whilst all of this was happening I found the Ports & Harbours web site that the guys had been checking up "Notice to Mariners" on and sent a very quick Email requesting the location of the elusive Spoil Ground Buoy. I received a very polite and concise reply the following day, giving the co-ordinates of the buoy and a note that the buoy had not been moved at all during the dredging operations. Unfortunately they could not tell me if the buoy was lit or not.
Armed with this information, another attempt was planned to find the Buoy was made by Eric accompanied by Sharyn, on the Tuesday evening of the week before the scheduled re-run of the Challenge. This time as they reached the end of the pier, the motor on Eric’s boat Bittersweet, decided it was time to give up! Being "sailors" Eric and Sharyn continued towards the Buoy as there was a nice breeze and who needs a motor on a yacht anyway!? Well when the wind dies early and you have a lot of distance to cover, sometimes a motor comes in handy. They made it to the vicinity of the Buoy but once again were unable to locate the exact position of the mark we needed to round. The trip home was extremely slow – they used the boat hook as a paddle and finally put the lines on the boat at about 5 am Wednesday morning!!
The day of the re-run finally arrived and with great excitement 12 yachts headed off at various start times to round a Buoy that nobody had been able to confirm was in place. It seems quite ironic that everyone found the Buoy that evening - and with no trouble at all. It was exactly where it was supposed to be all along.
Nonetheless, it was a brilliant sail finishing on nightfall and with a very sweet result for MMYC. We finished with a good post mortem of the race with members of both clubs enjoying pies and sausage rolls and only a couple too many drinks.
The next morning saw us all up early and keen to begin the final Race of this years Longbeach Challenge. A tight start with a lot of jostling for positions and we were off. The Recreational No. 2 Buoy was our first mark and was found by all without any worries. The second buoy was the MMYC M1 Buoy. As the lead boats neared the position where it was supposed to be it was becoming more and more obvious that this buoy had gone walkabout! It appeared that we were so concerned about the SG buoy that no one realised that the M1 had gone.
………….. and such is life in the world of small club yacht racing.
