The Marlay Point Overnight Race

This is a bit of a run down on my expedition to Lake Wellington Yacht Club for the Marlay Point Over Night Race!

I was crewing on a Careel 18 named “Indulgence”, with the skipper Steve, a work colleague, and his regular crew, Narelle. I’ve crewed a few times on Indulgence in Narelle’s absence.

I just need to preface this by saying that early weather forecasts (about a week out) had identified a cold front would come through the area some stage late on Saturday night, just about race start time. I decided that it might be prudent to buy some sea boots, to go along with my regular wet weather gear.

The yacht had been delivered to the Lake Wellington Yacht Club early on Saturday and I met up with the crew at Paynesville for some lunch prior to getting dropped off at LWYC. We arrived at LWYC at about 3pm and readied the boat for the race to start at 7:45. As the afternoon progressed the breeze was a nice 15kts out of the SE. A couple of ominous storm cells were observed to be developing out to the NW.

At the pre-race briefing, the weather forecaster from RAAF at Bairnsdale indicated that there was a 30% chance of storms from west hitting fleet. Noting that these were the storms that had hit Melbourne (and rest of Vic) producing tennis ball sized hail, torrential downpours and causing massive damage. Also storms developing to north, which probably weren’t going to hit us - but should be on the look out just in case!!

At about 6:45 we were about to leave the little creek adjacent to the yacht club and head out into the lake for the start when the first few drops of rain began to fall. Just to be safe we everybody began to get into full wet weather gear. Within about 30 seconds the heaven’s opened up and it began to pour. Along with the rain came wind gusts of up to 25 knots.

Everybody headed out toward the start line to wait and see what was going to happen next, some boats were sailing near the line- jockeying for position, whilst others anchored a distance from the line. We chose the later option, dropping the anchor. More precisely, I was on the bow doing the anchor work. All the while the rain and squalls continued - as did I mention the lightning and thunder. One of the thunder claps/lightning bolts was probably within a couple of hundred metres or so… apparently that was the edge of the storm. As it turns out we got off lightly.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice a flair going off - being that I’m not a racing regular, my first though is somebody is in strife - then a second flair in quick succession, no hang on, that’s the sign for the start to be delayed. As it turned out the start was put back an hour, to 8:45pm.

Our plan was to start behind main fleet - just keeping out of way of mayhem - did I mention pouring rain, lightning and thunder was still all around us. I should probably point out that the only time any of us had sailed at night or in this area, was last year when the skipper was crewing for somebody else. By the time the start came around the breeze had died off to barely a zephyr. Due to lack of lack of wind and our hanging back out of the mayhem, it actually took as 10 to 15 minutes to get to start after start flare and we then proceeded to follow the lights and our GPS plotters direction.

It was pretty much pitch black by the start, apart from the lightning - which illuminated the sky every ten minutes or so well until after midnight. Never having sailed at night before, I was a touch nervous, but with the excitement of the race and approximately 170 yachts around (mostly in front of) us, it was a lot easier than I thought to work out what was going on. Yachts have white stern lights, with red and green port and starboard bow lights. So with that, the continuing bolts of lightning every 10 or so minutes (until at least midnight) giving a “day time” perspective, the checking of the GPS and the continual trimming of sails, the nerves were gone.

So we were on our way into the previously described illuminated darkness, eastward from the Lake Wellington YC the 7 or so nautical miles to the entrance to the Plover Point beacon, before heading a touch E of S into McLennan Strait.

Following the deluge at the start and the continuing rain, the other two on board were soaked through - I was feeling pretty chuffed about now as my wet weather gear had held tight. I just got a bit of water up my sleeve when I was recovering the anchor and bow went under - but just a wet arm. As I had only shorts and tee-shirt on underneath, they remained dry.

It was an interesting trip across Lake Wellington, the winds were light and variable - common when multiple storm events in area. Considering the lack of wind, it was an intense time for many reasons. The winds were very shifty, so chasing what breeze you could, while trying to keep vaguely on course was tough. Every time we polled out the genoa, the wind would shift slightly and we would need to re-set. One of the storm cells appeared to be getting a bit close at one stage, the good old count between lightning and thunder correlation showed it to be within four or five k’s. Luckily it was tracking roughly west to east, as were we, so it didn’t get any closer.

We spent from race start, 8:45pm, to about 1:20am, a scratch over 4.5 hours to cover the 7 or so nautical miles across Lake Wellington. What we felt we really needed to assist was a spinnaker, the boats which were overtaking us, generally has a kite set. “Indulgence” doesn’t carry a spinnaker, as the Careel 18 class rules specify that they are raced without a kite. I spoke to a couple of guys off other boats after the race who did admit that the kite was set most of the way across Lake Wellington.

We thought, OK, we just need to get into McLennan Strait and things should get easier. Well that was easier said that done. McLennan Strait is apparently quite easy to enter as long as you stick to the middle. OK - so where does the straight actually start…OK, there is the eastern side so the western side must be over there somewhere… There was a boat a bit further east (closer to shore) that looked stuck and the boats immediately in front of us were doing OK…yep let’s hold this line…scrape and spin goes the boat…bugger…keel up!!!...i think I should now mention at this time that the breeze was varying between absolutely nothing and 2/5 of bugger all, so steerage was basically non existent…just as we get the keel up - noting that the boat has done a 270 degree turn and is pointing toward the other side of the channel - a zephyr gives just enough to get us going, and then stops leaving us heading toward the other side, once agin not enough wind for steerage…that’s OK we think as there is a boat a couple of boat lengths further toward the western side than we were…scrape…oh crap!…keel up further…OK we’re off, adjust heading…where’s the breeze…trim sails, keel down - slowly - and we’re sailing…now that we are in the channel we are feeling pretty safe as all the info we have tells us the channel was between 5m and 14m deep…phew.  

Going through the Strait also presented some interesting challenges, I can’t really remember what the wind was doing, other than it was either come from directly behind us or directly in front of us and the direction we were travelling seemed largely irrelevant.

After talking to a few others, it appears that there was basically no wind - or very slight from behind us - so when we were moving with the current the apparent wind was from in front and when we stalled the apparent wind was from behind…OK, I’m confused!

For most of the voyage along the strait the strength was still basically nothing with the occasional zephyr - except for a one stage, which I think may have been when we were approaching the southern most tip of the Strait. And I should also mention we had just got the stuff on deck to make a cuppa! We were heading SE and the wind finally gained some strength - about 8-10 kts, trouble was it was also from the SE!! (It was probably only 5kts and just felt like more as we were excited to get some wind…?) We ended up putting in about 12 to 14 tacks in quick succession to gain some headway, as with each tack we went from heading from one bank to the other,  it was a pretty intense 20 minutes or so.

Finally we get around the corner…yeah…we had a breeze that was constant and not directly on the nose - too good to be true…yep, wind eases and goes back to directly behind us…damn no kite!...so here we go again polling out the genoa…once again the second we get the pole out the wind swung 180 degrees and back winded that sails! Yep, definitely appears that it was very light and when combined with the current the apparent wind was coming head on as soon as you gained any speed.

Another tip I picked up after the event, sailing in those conditions is easier if you drop the headsail and sail under main alone. Talking with some of the guys who flew kites up the strait, they had up to 25 hoists and drops!

The one exciting part was, as we rounded one of the corners we could make out a heap of boats within sight of us…phew we weren’t too far behind!!

This variable strength and direction wind (or lack of wind) continued for the remainder of the channel, until we approached the exit of the McLennan Strait, near Holland’s Landing.

First however the other excitement of the Strait, the edge! As we were coming around one bend we noticed a few yachts on the edge trying to push themselves off…hmm we thought. We’d better stay near the middle or the other edge…well what do you know, toward the yachts we go…no wind…no steerage…ready to fend and push of…looking back now, after looking at maps and charts, it appears that some of the little stream and tributaries flowing into McLennan Strait must have created some weird currents…any way that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

Well, it’s now about 6:45am as we finally get to Holland’s Landing and make ready to leave the straits, what an experience 7nm in about 5.5hours…looking at the chart, we need to leave the port markers to starboard to stay in the deeper water…guess what…excitement, we didn’t find the shoals!!

By this stage the wind had finally materialised…about 10 knots (probably gusting 8-15kts ???) out of the SSE. This direction was perfect, we worked out we had the best part of 15 or 16 nautical miles to go to Paynesville and we were doing generally 4-5kts…if the wind held, we should be in by about 11am, well before the 1pm cut off. I should mention that up to know we had done about 15 nautical miles in 10 hours, so to say we were excited was an understatement!

Well things were going great guns, we were actually passing other yachts…morale was finally high - well higher, it’s all relative. I should probably mention again that mine was the only wet weather gear that had held, I was warm and dry…the other two no so much…

OK, we just had to pass Storm Point, which was 4.5nm away, bear away slightly a head to Point Turner a further 8nm away, then bear away again and head the final 3nm into Paynesville.

It was an excellent 3 hours sailing, seeing 12 of the 12.5nm to Point Turner covered at an average speed of 4knots…then the breezed stopped…dead…in the next 1 and 3/4, we had managed to drift from the north side of the lake to the south side of the lake - the opposite direction to that which we wanted to go…with 3.5nm left to the finish, no sign of any breeze, two of the three crew cold and wet, the end of race time limit closing in and many other boats motoring past (i.e. passing under motor having withdrawn), the decision was made to DNF…

It was a bit of a disappointing end to a frustrating race, but after racing for over 15 hours and having been on the boat for 17 hours, it was definitely a race I’ll not forget in a hurry, and an excellent introduction to both night time sailing and sailing the Gippsland Lakes.

So would I go through it all again…yep, I’ll definitely be back next year!

Hopefully in the not to distant future we’ll get a new trailer for the Jedda and we’ll be able to cruise around the lakes with no fixed destination or clock…who knows, the Jedda may even race the MPONR in the coming years!