ORCV Melbourne to Vanuatu (M2V)

They're off.

Yep. 10 miles down and just a mere 1875nm to go! WooHoo.

The two Jenneaus - Mirrabooka B429, who won the start and Ingenue (in front of orange flag on start boat), who was OCS. Scarlet Runner and the 51st Project charge into the line.

It was all smiles as the crews got underway from the Portsea Pier today. I did also notice a few tears on the Pier itself, however. There were two really sensational things that occurred during the pre-start today. The first was that all boats did a sail past to say good bye to their family and friends. The second was the number of people who had heard the broadcasts on ABC Radio and made their way down to the pier, to see these grand adventurers off.

One Gentleman from Rosebud told my Holly, who had decided to be on the quay, that "He thought the whole thing sounded great and would love to come down and watch it." He wasn't so happy when he found out that Holly had chosen not to be on the start boat. His jaw dropped in envy and said, "Why not? That would be fantastic!"

Unfortunately for Ingenue they were OCS and had the only individual recall of the day. That meant they were tenth out the Heads, but both Rosie and David have done this all before and were not perturbed, when we see goodbye to them out in Bass Strait, adjacent to Portsea back beach. Leading out the heads in the under 10knot Sou'wester was race favourite, Scarlet Runner. They would have been event further ahead, had it not been for a long patch of time sorting out their code zero. Second out was Samskara and then TevakeII.

Both Steb Fisher and Teri Dodds were out there, so we'll have an array of images shortly. MWS intel from the other end of the Bay to come, as well...

By John Curnow