Slaying giants
The long wait for the wind to kick in on the penultimate day of Airlie Beach Race Week paid off for Desperado and G'Nome.
Written by Di Pearson
Photography by Shirley Wodson
12 August 2020
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A long wait ashore for 64 crews as officials continued to monitor the weather – or lack thereof – on the Pioneer Bay course for the penultimate day of Airlie Beach Race Week Whitsundays Festival of Sailing, hosted by Whitsunday Sailing Club (WSC).
But it was worth the wait for some. Just ask Graham Sherring in the Passage Rating division and Terry Archer in Multihull Racing.
Sherring’s Desperado stole a march on the star of the show, Hollywood Boulevard (Ray Roberts). The Queenslander and his crew are the only ones to defeat the Sydney-based Botin 40 so far. And Desperado is small compared to the rest of the fleet; she’s an Atkinson 24.
I asked him what special magic does Desperado have that the others lack? “I’ve got Caedric Reader aboard – he usually sails with Uncle Ray,” was the quick response.
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“The truth is, we had a short Bay Race. Shorter than usual as we started late, just after 1 pm, as there had been no settled breeze up to that point. We raced in 6 knots and it was light all day with a lot of big holes in the course. And we had our moments with them – nobody missed out.
“It was a pretty quiet, boring day because it was so light. But the crew did well for me today. We had a good start and a good first hour of the race. We plodded along from there.”
Sherring continued, “My boat is a JOG (Junior Offshore Group) boat. It won three JOG titles during the eighties. JOG races have started up in Gosford and we won the JOG Nationals there in February.”
On beating Hollywood by four minutes on corrected time he said, “We’re elated. We’re on top of the world beating Uncle Ray.”
Hollywood still has a stranglehold on the Rating Passage series having won four out of five races. He holds a commanding 11-point lead over David Currie’s Ponyo from Victoria.
In Multihull Racing, Terry Archer has been taking on the big guns – ORMA 60s and the Extreme 40 Back in Black – with his little 8-metre Grainger 075. I asked him yesterday what he had to do to beat either one. The response: “Get them drunk.”
However, Archer didn’t need to fill them up with turps; he beat them fair and square on the Bay course today, saying: “We sailed pretty well. Conditions were fairly good for us. We’re pretty chuffed.
“I was surprised we sailed past the ORMA guys on handicap. They called out and said, ‘You got us by two minutes!’ – they knew and we didn’t.”
Archer said, “I couldn’t be happier. We went past the finish line with a lap to go when they were finishing but at least they didn’t lap us!”
“Earlier on, we tried to stop Ross Chisholm, the Race Director, going down to the start boat and thought, Surely he’s not going to send us out there at this late stage.
“We’d been sitting around on the grass relaxing and had lost the urge. But he actually did a great job getting a race in for us – and we’re happy he did.”
Archer, who represents the host Whitsundays Sailing Club (WSC) said that given the boat was a rotting hulk four years ago, and in reference to having slain the two giants of the event: “I think I should sell it today. It will never be worth more than it is now.
“That’s where the name G’Nome came from – it was like a garden gnome rotting in a backyard,” he ended.
The AP flags held firm at WSC and the Coral Sea Marina Resort (where many of the boats are staying) before finally being lowered at 12.10 pm. Race Director Ross Chisholm announced racing would “not start before 1 pm.” Initially, racing was due to start from 10.30 am, but there was little breeze.
Many of the smaller boats were still on the course at 5.30 pm, which was a long day for them.
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