ORCV Melbourne to King Island

Where you off to, then, Governor?

At noon on Saturday, Scarlet Runner leads the race to King Island and all its delights, both panoramic and gastronomic, having done 60nm of the 114 needed to get here. They are 6nm ahead of Gusto and doing about 7knots. Expect them in at maybe 2000hrs.

Not going quite as fast as this, but moving along nicely, anyway - Scarlet Runner

There are some very important efforts that appear from the noon sked, as well. We do hope their efforts are rewarded at the 1800hrs sked and their places cemented in. First to mention is eXtasea. They're in third place, which is handy when you give 20 feet away to 2nd and 8 feet away to first. They are nine miles astern, but travelling about 1.5knots slower. Still, with the kind of lead they have over the remainder of the fleet, an IRC win looks pretty certain for the always well-sailed DK46 of Paul Buchholz.

Five miles astern of eXtasea are the 39 footers Jazz Player and Arch Rival. Half a mile behind them are Spirit of Downunder, Cadibarra 8 and Nutcracker. Well done to the latter, who is only 35 feet and up to seven feet shorter than the others. It goes to show the level of skill onboard and just as importantly, the level of determination for the boat's first adventure in the Paddock. White Noise is just behind them and with that boat's rating, expect a podium result there, as well. At the back are Magic and Spirit of Freya, with Escapade around 7nm behind and the most Easterly boat of the fleet.

Now earlier on in the day, there were a three boats that departed Grassy, one of which was Mirrabooka and another was Andalucia. I reckon it is the former in this pic, below, as it has a blue boom cover and lazy jacks...

A little while ago, we got the van to cross the 40th parrallel and wondered when you lot out there racing would do the same. This is Race Director George Shaw with his Assistant RD, Robyn Brooke over by the sign.

Now chatting with the irrepressible and extremely diesel train like gent whilst he's asleep, known to all as the Immediate Past ORCV Commodore, George Shaw, we spotted a lot of Osaka Expression of Interest holders in the gang on their way here to King Island. There are 23 EOIs in the mix for the 2013 race, so far and a number of others floating about who haven't found the button, which is HERE, BTW.

At any rate, there are nine Osaka parties out there racing to King Island, either on the boat they're going to take or the one before the one they plan to take, on someone else's vessel altogether and lastly, not known to the general yachting community, as yet. This is the list:

• Team Beyond Outrageous - Tony Warren
• Cadibarra 8 - Paul Roberts and the boat will still have the M2KI record after this year's event
• Escapade - Robert 'Vladimir' Bradley
• Jeremy Walton is the Naviguesser on Brian Pattinson's Gusto (and Brian completed his last one with the yellow Open 60, Gusto)
• David Clancy is aboard our original Love Boat, Nutcracker
• Scarlet Runner - Rob Date
• Boat X - who shot to fame in the 2010 M2V and won the 2010 Sovereign Series (Oh - Am I that obvious???)
• Spirit of Downunder - Laurie 'Lozza' Ford
• Boat Z - which just made it in to the water before Xmas and ran over to Launceston on December 27.

Sun's back out and it really is glorious... If you're not sailing, you may want to see where the boats are during the race on the ORCV's Tracker, which is HERE.

© John Curnow, ORCV Media

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