Wave!

9:51 PM Thu 29 Jan 2009 GMT

'Wave! Always helps the helmer... pic courtesy Steb Fisher - Docklands and Skandia Geelong Week' Steb Fisher &copyPhoto

Gee I wish I had a dollar for every time I said or heard that word during the recent Docklands Invitational and Skandia Geelong Week

These regattas provided a viewing of powerful new toys like 'Living Doll' and the magical 60 footers - 'Loki', King of the Derwent winner 'Limit' and 'Black Jack'. All of which disappeared as they left everybody in their dust. Alas it was Mother Nature that showed her supreme power in the end to leave all and sundry in her dust - a Melbourne (half the Mallee) dust storm in fact, that ensured there was no racing to be had on day two whatsoever! Naturally this was to the delight of the proprietors of all the cafes, supermarkets and ultimately bars and restaurants, who ended up being the winners on that day. Some may even say for the whole regatta.

The close racing was definitely a feature of the last week. So much so that on Day Two when there were no points to be had to go towards the Audi IRC National Series, an egg and spoon race in front of the Audi Cars on the promenade was proposed. Given some crews had already made it to the bar, it was felt that beer races might be a better way to resolve who gets the car.

The rest of the days were delightfully sunny with a building breeze - even if you did have to wait for it. Some cantered the keel and took to the halyards as they found more and more interesting ways to get into the water. The novelty prize goes to the crew of 'Shamrock' however, who got the wakeboard out and by virtue of the cast iron mainsheet, managed to get a smile on all the remaining crews of the fleet, who were sweltering in the midday sun.

On the final day, 'Living Doll' pressed home its advantage to take IRC and 'Shogun' (the old Living Doll) used their local knowledge to have a blinder of a race and lead all but 'Skandia' and the 60's for a lot of the race.

For some boats, it was inshore crews getting back together, but for all it was damn fine racing, some great fun and good laughs as a bonus. So despite the fact that a lot of the Sydney fleet could not make it in the end, the ones who did all said they would be back next year. What was great to see, however, was the number of boats that had more than one woman aboard - good news all round. The Melbourne based fleet will all be out on February 6 for the next instalment of the Range Series, which will be a good chance to utilise the honed skills this fleet and the regattas provided.

In the end, all I can say is I am glad the racing was last week and not this one - for as cooler as it is on water than land, returning to shore to face this present heat wave, would be no fun at all.