Audi Victoria Week - Cruising division pile up

11:16 AM Sun 24 Jan 2010 GMT

'Cruising on Corio Bay - Audi Victoria Week' Andrea Francolini / Audi &copy

The huge Sunsail Cruising with Spinnaker fleet contesting Audi Victoria Week today sailed a 12 nautical mile Corio Bay course, but at one mark, there was less cruising and more shouting and bumping of hulls as the fleet converged in a slow motion pile up.

After a lovely spinnaker ride from the finish, the southerly breeze died at the first mark of the course, causing commotion as those still with momentum ran into a wall of boats with no steerage.

As crews from the 40 odd boats involved in the park-up scrambled to fend off other boats, not all successful, the eventual Division 1 winner, Theo Korbel, saw just enough space for his Beneteau 367 Lebrok and grabbed the opportunity just as the southerly breeze suddenly filled in.

'We had a bad start, so we were a few minutes behind at that mark. We saw the 40 boats together looking like a wall at the mark and thought we would have to go around the outside. But instead we decided to sneak in, and in the last 10 seconds that's when the heavens opened up.

'We knocked off 40 boats in one hit. We won the race at that mark,' said Korbel, a 10-time Audi Victoria Week competitor who used to race IRC. Given that he and his crew, who average 50 plus, are just that little bit older, they decided to join the record entry Cruising Division this year.

Victorious in Division 2 was Stuart Lyon's Van Der Stadt 35, Spindrift, while Division 3 honours in today's race, which took the fleet to both the inner and outer harbours of Geelong's Corio Bay, went to Craig Black's Bluebird Drambue.

The series tally has Daryl Lea's Crackerjack leading the Division 1 pointscore after two races, Gary Mulroyan's Barinya leading Division 2 and Simon Grain's Make My Jay leading Division 3.

In the Coca Cola Cruising Non Spinnaker Division, Frank Arheim's Trilogy was the best placed boat on corrected time.

Results: www.victoriaweek.com

by Lisa Ratcliff

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