8:30 on the deck of Manly Yacht Club on your classic Sydney February summer morning, the cove before us glistening under cloudless blue sky. BOM was talking about a big southerly change on its way, but it was unlikely to reach us until noon when we would be packing up anyway.
And a lively deck it was, too, with a big turnout of volunteers on duty bright and early in anticipation of 20 or so clients for the day. And not just any volunteers, but a team with combined decades of experience. Despite this we managed to get 6 303s plus Ivan’s single hander rigged and in the water quite efficiently, though any hubris or complacency was shattered when Dennis sounded the alarm. The blue boat could not be taken down to the water, he thundered. And it was true, a mainsheet shackle was facing the wrong way, impeding the free flow of the mainsheet. Seconds were wasted as the shackle was turned around, everyone fully aware that it could have taken twice as long to fix if the problem had not been noticed until after the boat was in the water.
Regrettably, while we volunteers had shown up in numbers bright and early, the breeze stayed in bed. Nothing. Nada. This would be a morning of bobbing around the bay, going nowhere. Which meant that John, who had never previously driven Charlie’s Chariot on a sailing day, along with his erstwhile photographer Ken were the busiest of all of us, towing becalmed sailors this way and that across the ferry lanes. Eventually Warwick got jack of it all and sensibly asked the chariot for a tow around the bay to break the monotony, with Malcolm joining in, their clients grinning like Cheshire cats as their boats surged side by side in Charlie’s wake. More purist sailors turned a powered jaunt down, and it was true that occasionally a coquettish 2 knot gust rippled across Manly Cove, flirting momentarily before dancing away. Maybe the purist are right. We are called Sailability after all. But on a boring, windless day it is lovely watching the excited, gleeful faces of our clients as they zig and zag across Charlie’s wake at a rate of knots.
Anyway, as it happened the southerly turned up early, punching in around 11:30, when we still had 3 boats out. Within minutes they were overpowered, surrounded by white caps, mainsails flapping as they reached back to the club. So it wasn’t all boring after all.
