ORCV Melbourne to King Island

It looks like?

This. We saw in both Launch and The Promise, that the hope was for a downwind race in a strong enough Nor'easter. A brisk trip in the sun where it was more about sunscreen than wet weather gear. For the bulk of the fleet, this is very unlikely to be the case. Indeed, even the record looks to be somewhat safe, as the leaders would appear to get to the bottom about the same time as the current is trying it's best to head North.

After a cool and oh-so-grey morning in Melbourne, the haze and muck burnt off, the plane finally got in the air (Melbourne's airport is having one of the runway's resurfaced, which is slowing the scenario down a lot and our plane was late in from it's last port). So sunny, blue and pleasant skies greeted us and I got the feeling we were about to witness on the Friday, what all the models had been saying for over a week was going to be occurring on the Saturday.

As we got in to Bass Strait, you could not help thinking 24 hours seemed like a very special amount of time indeed...

The top of the Bay.

Queenscliff at the bottom of the image and Point Nepean at the right of the engine nacelle.

I think this is what everyone was expecting Bass Strait to look like for the race. Lots of white caps and a heap of sunshine...

Landing at King Island, the clouds had appeared about 10 minutes out and the wind was Nor'east, strong enough and cool, as well.

© John Curnow, ORCV Media

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	Councillor Island on the left, as seen from the plane... Remember the currents!!!!