It's all very Bright in Brighton!

5:39 AM Wed 7 Jan 2009 GMT

'Winners are definitely grinners - awesome effort to get to start line let alone finish line - M2H East' John Curnow

The silly season's ORCV races have now been completed and it is certainly all smiles at the Royal Brighton Yacht Club.

RBYC came out in force, 18, to be exact. Even the ORCV's sponsor, Kevin Robinson of Heemskirk Consolidated on 'No Fearr', shared the wealth and the limelight with his club mates.

'Pretty Woman' in her first year of ocean racing came out and won PHS Div1 for the Cock of the Bay on Boxing Day and then went on to do M2H East. Well done to Roger Wale and crew and we hope they inspire others to leave Port Phillip this year.

Alexander McGuigan at just 16 years completed his first three race series on 'Magazan 53', including an M2H West! His reward was to be part of the crew that picked up the PHS win for the whole Sovereign Series. A great way to start, but don't retire just yet Alex. No doubt he'll be out in his dinghy classes again this weekend.

'Ing?nue' won PHS Div2 for the King of the Derwent on January 2nd, 2009, out of a total fleet of 50. She is a Jeanneau 40 and I am sure they enjoyed the creature comforts a boat like that provided during the M2H East on the new course across Bass Strait and above Flinders Island.

Good and successful first year out in the blue stuff - ORCV - John Curnow

For the inaugural Salamanca Series that Heemskirk sponsored to tie in the new M2H East, the classic Borresen 12m 'Under Capricorn' took out both AMS and PHS. This is a tremendous effort for an older boat and shows that her crew, under Skipper Phil Bedlington, mastered the various conditions that befell them.

The Cock of the Bay was an absolute drifter for the first part, the Hobart parked them for a while and the King of the Derwent was full of rainsqualls before melting away to nothing.

You don't get a race without a fleet and you need all manner of boats to make up that fleet. We hope all clubs will continue to assist their boats get out for ocean racing during the course of the year and especially next Christmas to make it an even bigger affair.