ORCV Melbourne to King Island (M2KI)

It's not quite enough...

... for them, that they took The HCOTW (Happiest Crew on the Water) prize recently (see HERE). Now they want 'Nutcracker's Love Boat title as well (and see HERE for that). I wonder if it is all part of some 'Audacious' plan or something (Basil Brush - boom, boom)?

A lovely sunset training session for team 'Audacious' turned into something quite different, just recently. In the words of the Skipper, Greg Clinnick -

The Tactician gets a wife and the Trimmer gets a husband - all at the same time. Here is how KD, our tactician popped, the question to Kate, our trimmer.

We were completing our last training sail off Brighton, just before the Sydney 38 Nationals. KD calls for the S3 kite to go up at the end of the session, which is a bit of an odd call because it is our heavy weather kite and the winds were light. But hey. We were training, so let's whack it up. The kite was brand new and hadn't been out of the bag yet, but little did I know that it had actually and ever so secretly, been out earlier on that afternoon...

KD walks back past me and says "Watch Kate's reaction when this kite goes up." Now I am thinking KD is going to crash gybe, part way through the hoist or do something equally as difficult.

Anyway, the kite goes up, Kate as trimmer sets the kite and there in the middle is a message from KD - "I love you. Will you marry me?" Kate starts blubbering and is totally taken by surprise. All of the crew are stunned and are waiting for Kate to say something. Through the tears there is a mumble of "Yes I will" from Kate and then it's hugs, kisses and high fives all around. We pack the boat up and everyone is very happy for K2 (Ken and Kate's nickname for when we are talking about both of them).

If she had said no, we would have been in big trouble, but Ken assured me he was pretty confident of a yes and was just giving our Bowman and Sally some time to get over their Whitehaven Beach proposal before popping the question.

So I think we're going to have to get you guys out to sea to calm everyone down. Greg if you are away for M2KI, you'll have to give Captain Capper, Phil Bedlington, the keys to 'Audacious' again and get your lot to go and stick there noses out in the big blue. On different watches, of course. Well done BTW.

Club Marine Series, Day Five - Feb 20 - is next, as we do need some sailing to get in the way of all this fun and frivolity...

By John Curnow