Hobart
johnm
They're all here now. From a friends balcony in waterfront Sandy Bay we
watched Alpha Romeo ghost down the river in the last of the twilight, we
watched most of the rest of the fleet, right down to the last
competitor, Polaris of Belmont, on their way down the Derwent from our
balcony on the other side of the river.
Constitution dock and Sullivans Cove Marina a full now, where they were
empty not many days ago and the usual partying is occurring all over the
place. I reckon the crowds are down a bit this year, and there isn't
the carnival atmosphere of past years around the waterfront, perhaps due
to the lack of the stalls and entertainment of previous years.
That doesn't make any difference to those of us who are there to wander
round and enjoy inspecting the wide variety of racing machinery, but to
me the vast majority are morphing into little more than big and even
bigger purpose built racing skiffs. The number of well set up and very
appealing (to me) cruiser/ racers seems to be dramatically less this year.
Anyone else have impressions to share?
Cheers
JM
jg
A friend of mine helped deliver Knee Deep from Perth. A Farr 49 - just a
big surfboard he said. He intended staying the week to mingle, but as
you say too big a gap between his preference for long distance voyaging
and posey drag racing.
The media focus on the 3 or 4 elite boats, then one when it gets its
head in front, and you wouldn't know there are any others in the race.
It kills public interest and I think that disinterest probably spills
over into our sport.
Must be great to watch them come in though. A certain pride at living at
the place which makes it such an awesome race course?
johnm
Yes indeed, it's very pleasant to be immersed in the experience of
living in Hobart. Have loved every second of it since we moved from the
Gold Coast 9 months ago.
I saw Knee Deep and, in fact, another couple of Perth boats as we
wandered past and wondered whether the same crew delivered them over
from the west (and back again) as raced them.
Yeh I think the 'big end of town' and the media and public interest
which surrounds such huge wads of cash being sunk into it is in danger
of crushing the original spirit of the race. The heavy public emphasis
on the blokes who step onto their million dollar racing machines and
fang it here in a day or two, while spectacular and very newsworthy,
increasingly means that the bloke with a boat he club races through the
year and wants to go and do something special with occasionaly will find
it increasingly difficult to find a group of similar blokes to compete
against. Hope not and it's just me being cynical, because there are
still one or two very desirable boats in the marina down here- Spirit of
Koomoolloo for one, the British forces trio, too, are georgeous boats.
By saying that I'm not devaluing the appeal of any of the boats here,
right up to the multi million dollar purpose built racing skiff, simply
that I find much more appeal in a boat that looks like there might be a
potplant stashed down below somewhere to be brought out when the
weather's fine.
Cheers
JM
jg
Apparently the Sharpies are racing their nationals right now on the
Derwent too, they are always fun to watch. They appeal to me more, dunno
about the general public - they will probably never have the chance to
decide.
johnm
in the river at the moment. Love it. Brings back memories of my OK
dinghy days off Sandgate in Brisbane.
Cheers
JM