Final Reminders – 2023 King Island Race

King Island has limited health resources so we ask you all to adhere to our hosts' requests as outlined below. If you are unwell prior to departure, please stay at home. If you are unwell upon arrival, as per the SI’s we ask that all the crew stay on the boat.

Tender Service

The water police are monitoring the event and the boat club have asked that everyone wears a life jacket on the tender transfer service to avoid a fine. Consider bringing a waterproof bag for your crew jackets to go into.

After you finish, please follow exactly the instructions given by the tender driver and berth where they ask you. We are using the fisherman’s moorings so please follow these instructions to preserve the mooring in good order. We ask that you follow the instructions of the tender drivers for mooring and familiarise yourself with the updated mooring instructions as outlined in the Sailing Instructions taking special note of D4.3, 4.4 and 4.5.

Best Photo Competition

Send us your photo prior to Monday 3pm to go into the draw for some new ORCV Neck warmers or some ORCV Merchandise to the value of $70. Your photos help us as volunteers, promote the race, speak about the wonderful time, hospitality and location let alone how great it is that we have these great places to race to. All photos must be taken by yourself and don’t forget to include your boat and your name with your submission. Submit via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via scanning the QR code below to join the Whatsapp group.. Don't forget too to tag #orcv on your social media too.

Cash

There is an EFTPOS machine at the King Island Boat Club but it's not reliable so they recommend bringing cash. We will have some raffles/auctions of the delicious King Island food which will require cash.

At King Island

The King Island Boat Club hospitality is what makes this race so special. For this small club, our race is their major fundraiser so please make sure you support them by staying for at least a short while and show your appreciation to Gary (Acting Commodore), Matthew (tender driver), Tanya, Niki and Linda (hospitality) plus many other volunteers who work throughout the weekend to accommodate you. We ask that you follow the instructions of the tender drivers for mooring and familiarise yourself with the updated mooring instructions as outlined in the Sailing Instructions taking special note of D4.3, 4.4 and 4.5.

The fisherman of Grassy loaned us their moorings and one was damaged a couple of years back. So please be careful and use the moorings correctly as outlined in the sailing instructions to allow us to be invited back again.

Presentation.

The race presentations will be held at 10 am on Sunday unless otherwise notified by the Race Directors via SMS. The Race Directors work incredibly long hours, prior to and during the race and are still on watch until you get home. So please make sure you also thank them by staying and being part of the presentations.

Keep King Island and our Oceans Clean.

This year 2 boats (Blue Water Tracks and White Spirit) will be conducting water sampling as we test how the club can continue to support Clean Oceans and how we can roll this out on future races.

King Island has natural beauty and does not have recycling we have on the mainland, so please take your rubbish home and consider taking your own coffee cup to the island also.

Remember, reduce the use single use plastics onboard by – reusing, refilling and recycling,

Entry to Grassy Harbour

Entering Grassy Harbour for the first time can be a daunting task. Preparation is key to navigating your way through safely. I would urge all competitors to set up a route in their plotters setting out a route to follow. From the finish line, you need to move to a position that is far enough offshore so that you stay in deep water. Once you reach your first waypoint, you will turn to starboard onto the leads (298° Magnetic). Once you reach your second waypoint you will turn to starboard on the second set of leads (41° Magnetic) until you are through the entrance of the harbour. There is plenty of room inside the Harbour where you will wait for the tender to direct you to your mooring.

Grassy Harbour Map

Bio Security

As with all Tasmanian locations, all fresh fruit and veggies cannot be brought onto King Island and can be disposed of into the Bio Security Bags at the KIBC and then tied and placed into the bio security bins..

Trackers

Don''t forget to pick up your trackers. Trackers have been dropped to your club or in the case of Geelong and Safety Beach direction, delivered as per the ORCV Office communication. The trackers are setup ready for you to just turn them on.

Please return the trackers to the same location and let your club contact know you have returned them.

SYC – Reception (Club contact Sally Williams)
RBYC – boating office (Club contact Grant Dunoon)
RMYS – Reception (Club contact Andrew McConchie)
HBYC / RVYC – Reception (club contact Justin Brenan)
Safety Beach – Contact Simon Dryden

Trackers are to be turned on Thursday afternoon. Please check that you can see them on Blue Water Tracks here https://race.bluewatertracks.com/2023-king-island-race Any issues, please call the starting race director. How to mount them can be found here Tracker can be found here

Return Journey

Please be careful with your trip home, be mindful to avoid possible areas that you could run aground such as Elephant Shoal etc and many other points as you head safely home.

Lastly, sked sheet and leave at home documents are on the website here. (check link)

Have fun and be safe at sea.
ORCV Media

Challenges fuel interest in 51^st King Island Race

More than 30 boats are set to start the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s 114 nautical mile King Island Race, starting at 5pm on Friday 10 March off Queenscliff, with competitors chasing overall honours and the nine-year-old race record set by John Newbold’s Primitive Cool of nine hours 50 minutes 21seconds.

Royal Geelong Yacht Club’s Paul Buchholz is prepping his canting Cookson 50, Extasea, hoping conditions are ripe for record breaking.

Prizes at the end are large crayfish and King Island cheeses. If you don’t win a cray, participants say the steak sandwiches are worth the trip. That and the warm hospitality offered by the King Island Boat Club crew.

Paul Buchholz at the helm of Extasea Steb Fisher pic

Paul Buchholz at the helm of Extasea - Steb Fisher pic

Buchholz says, “Having crays as prizes is a great idea. They’re something you can get your teeth into that you can enjoy.”

Getting to the finish first is not a given though. “There are quite a few challengers actually,” Buchholz admits. “Hartbreaker (Antony Walton) and Scarlet Runner (Robert Date) and MRV.”

Choosing overall favourites is complex, as the weather and tides are a major factor in in deciding the outcome in such a diverse fleet. Buchholz agrees.

“It is a difficult race. Very fickle. You have to choose whether to sail close to the island or not. The tides make it hard getting around the island. Navigational wise it really is a challenge,” Buchholz says. “It’s very hard to break the record too. You need good reaching conditions.”

Among the front runners touted for overall honours is Damien King’s Frers 61, MRV and the Scott Robinson skippered How Bizarre, a Sequest RP36.

“MRV does beautifully upwind. Medium wind would be perfect. Downwind is difficult, as old girl doesn’t surf.”

King, who is eyeing of “Ryujin (Alex Toomey) competition wise, had an unsuccessful run at MRV’s first attempt at the race. “Last year we got caught in a weird weather pattern. There we sat for six hours in a hole. We ended up turning round and going home.”

The Victorian said his crew were “the usual suspects, but I have to mention Jon Orr – he looks after catering, trims sails, steers. He does everything. We couldn’t do without him.”

King added, “I’m so pleased the ORCV holds these races, because without them there wouldn’t be offshore races. They’re passionate about racing and keeping us sailors happy.”

On a final note, he said, “We’re looking forward to the steak sandwiches at the end. Fingers crossed for an upwind race.”

Scott Robinson agrees: “You’d die for the eye fillet steaks. They cook through the day and night. It’s a fantastic scene. The reception at King Island is fantastic and the set-up is so good.”

He is praying for an upwind race too. “Our boat suits light weather on the wind. We don’t mind if it gets a bit heavier upwind either. It’s not a long race, so it’s a perfect. It’s nostalgic for me, I did it as a kid around 15 with my father. I did all the offshore races on Solent and Brumby, an Adams Half Tonner. Both were owned by my father and his brother.

How Bizarre among the favourites Bruno Cocozza ORCV pic

How Bizarre up there with the contenders for overall honours. Photo Bruno Cocozza.

“The ORCV has been doing a fantastic job of building the numbers up. It obviously makes the competition better. But at the end of the day, we just want to finish and get at those steak sandwiches – I can taste them thinking about it,” Robinson ends.

A new initiative this year comes courtesy of the ORCV’s ‘Clean Oceans’ activity. The Club will be water sample testing for micro plastics and plankton from two competing yachts. Immediate Past Commodore, Grant Dunoon (Blue Water Tracks) and present Commodore, Cyrus Allen (White Spirit), have been entrusted with this important job.

The King Island Race starts off Queenscliff in southern Victoria, then tracks across Bass Strait and to the finish at Grassy Harbour, King Island, off the north-western tip of Tasmania.

Follow the race on the Blue Water Tracks race tracker at: https://race.bluewatertracks.com/2023-king-island-race

See who's racing on the tracker.

All information at: https://www.orcv.org.au/

ORCV media

King Island Race 2023

There’s something super special about King Island that brings us back year after year. With the race just around the corner and starting in daylight on Friday 10th March at 5pm, I invite you to experience this amazing destination race and to the land of meat, cheese and rugged beauty.

Grassy Harbour offers safe anchorage in all weather and the race is part of the ORCV Offshore, Double Handed Championships and Australian Ocean Racing Championship (AORC).

For those who haven’t been to King Island, it’s the perfect ocean racing distance of 114 nm and combined with the amazing hospitality of the King Island Boat Club community - it’s the perfect destination.

If you or your crew need to refresh or top up on Safety Sea and Survival qualifications, we are running a course on February 12th to cater for King Island crews.

Please note berthing is limited and we do expect the race to reach the maximum of 40 entrants quickly. Confirm your place in the race by entering today and take advantage of early bird entrant price.

What could be better than King Island crayfish and cheese pic courtesy ORCV

Rozinante II wins slow dance to Grassy in 50^th King Island Race

Rozinante II has won a protracted King Island Race from Melbourne to Grassy at the southern end of the Island, while John Newbold’s Primitive Cool took line honours in the time of 1 day, 3hrs 13mins 11secs, well outside the record he set in 2014 of 9 hours 50mins 21secs.

Start with Rozinante II centre stage Steb Fisher pic King Island Race

Start with Rozinante II centre stage - Steb Fisher pic - King Island Race

Competitors will long remember the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s 50^th race. On the positive side were the crayfish and steak sandwiches at the end of a very slow race that took nearly double the time it normally would.

Rozinante II’s skipper, Andrew Middleton, joined the race last year as part of the rally, which the ORCV introduced to encourage more owners to step up to Category 2 racing. Since then, he has gone on to regularly do Cat 3 races, but the King Island Race was his maiden Cat 2 race – and he won.

For the 50^th, Middleton joined forces with Leo Cantwell, who usually skippers Magic Bullet and who also took part in the rally in 2021.

Rozinante 11 winners

Rozinante II crew

“I’d just like to thank the ORCV for presenting this opportunity. I think the rally was a great thing for us to do,” Cantwell said, clutching the King Island cheese package that formed part of his prize.

After spending much longer at sea than they all expected, Cantwell caused much laughter when he commented, “Some people have said this was a short race, but for me it was bloody long. It was a hard night, but it was a great team effort and I’m very pleased to be standing up here today.”

And a word from the elder statesman of the fleet, Laurie Ford, skipper of Spirit of Downunder), who also produced laughter: “The start was horrendous. I thought, ‘oh god, the boat’s going to get damaged and I’m trying to sell it’. But the latter part of the race was very enjoyable.”

Ford, whose sons Tim and Stuart, along with Paul Beresford, joined him in the Four + Autohelm division, continued: “I think I did my first King Island in 1992 and it hasn’t changed much!”

The 114 nautical mile race started in a 12-14 south/south-westerly under sunny blue skies at 3pm on Friday - glorious conditions. Primitive Cool got through the Heads first. Around midnight the wind dropped out. It remained light to the end and so favoured the smaller and lighter boats.

Happy winners with their crayfish prizes pic courtesy ORCV

Happy crayfish winners photo ORCV Media

Some sailed the rhumbline course, while others took an easterly or western route. The east paid dividends.

Normally the fleet would have been finished by around midnight Friday night, and that would have been the case had the forecast from a week earlier held. However, the reality was starkly different and it was a little more than a day later when the first boats trickled in.

From midnight Friday the yachts were floating around in a negligible breeze and by Saturday morning nothing had changed. The scenario was there for all to see on the Blue Water Tracks race tracker. Boats not moving, some going backwards, others going around in circles.

At 8am on Saturday morning, Damien King’s Frers 61, Margaret Rintoul V, was just leading Brian Pattinson’s Don Jones 42, Gusto (being raced double handed by Pattinson and Bruno Carreto), both sailing well east of the rhumbline. Rintoul eventually retired, along with three others.

Extasea (Paul Buchholz), race record holder Primitive Cool (John Newbold), Hartbreaker (Antony Walton) and Carrera S (Gerry Cantwell), were next in the ‘chase’ if you could call it that, for line honours. Newbold was sailing close the rhumbline, while the other two were sailing west of the rhumbline.

Saturdays sunrise from Maverick Rod Smallman pic

Sunrise from Maverick Saturday. Photo Rod Smallman

On Saturday morning, Rod Smallman said from mid-fleet, “We are in no wind. It’s been like this most of the night. We’ve got 1.2 knots of wind speed. Margaret Rintoul has done well; she’s sailed a good line. I’ve just done a weather route and it has us getting in around 2am. The crays and steak sandwiches are looking good…

“It’s fun to be out at sea though. It was a beautiful sunrise this morning.”

Meanwhile, the prizes were due to be handed out at 10am. The crayfish were cooked and the King Island Boat Club had the steak sandwiches ready to hit the barby – a paddock of water and no wind standing between the parties.

The 50^th King Island Race brought out many a past entrant, including Ian Lyall, who has competed in more than 20.

What could be better than King Island crayfish and cheese pic courtesy ORCV

What could be better than King Island crayfish and cheeses Photo ORCV Media

Top three results:

AMS Division 1

1. Arcadia (Peter Davison)
2. Soiree Bleu (Douglas Lithgow)
3. Patriot (Jason Close)

AMS Division 2

1. Rozinante II (Andrew Middleton)
2. Weekend Option (Michael Culhane)
3. Vertigo (Tim Olding)

ORC Division 1

1. Patriot
2. Bandit (Ashley Trebilcock)
3. White Noise (Daniel Edwards)

ORC Division 2

1. Rozinante II
2. Merlion (Eddie Mackevicius)
3. Alien (Justin Brenan)

PHS Division 1

1. Soiree Bleu
2. Arcadia
3. Hot Chipps (John Chipp)

PHS Division 2

1. Weekend Option (Michael Culhane)
2. Rozinante II
3. Foggy Dew (Robert D’Arcy)

Double-Handed

Maverick (Tony Hammond/Rod Smallman)
Gusto (Brian Pattinson/Bruno Carreto
Solera (Stuart Richardson/Jason Boyle)

Line Honours

Primitive Cool (John Newbold)

Full results: https://www.orcv.org.au/results/2021-22/

Weather Predictions 50th ORCV Melbourne to King Island Race

The 50th ORCV Melbourne to King Island will get underway tomorrow at around 3pm in a light SW breeze. It's predicted to be light winds for most of the race with some strategy required to avoid the dead patches during Saturday and the top of King Island.

Hopefully, most will be in by early evening in time for the band and no doubt they will be ready for that great King Island steak sandwich.

You can follow the fleet on the tracker here https://race.bluewatertracks.com/2022-orcv-50th-melbourne...