Yet another great day on the water in glorious conditions. Clear, sunny, even a testing little wind change at about 1300, from weak gradient to sea breeze - all the ingredients for a fun (racing) cruise-to-lunch. A staggered start was used, in the style of a Pursuit Race, to keep the start simple and have the boats arrive off Cheung Chau together for the run ashore.

WWF’s ‘A Day for Dolphins’ dawned dark and foreboding, much as the doomsayers had been predicting all week. The task of getting 30 boats to stations all around Lantau Island had always been a daunting one. Dr Lindsay Porter of the World Wildlife Fund led a huge effort in preparation, organising volunteers and coordinating boats with help from Discovery Bay Yacht Club and Gold Coast Marina. The event was sponsored by Sino Group, hosts also to that evening’s dinner, with over 150 people raining down on the Gold Coast marina Club at the end of the day.

Sickness and broken boats turned the day into quite a low-key event, with only six starters (and seven finishers), but what a cracking day for a Southerly monsoon sail!

Well, with the lovely sunny weather, the experts predicted a battle between the Northerly gradient wind and a developing sea breeze - and that’s what we got!

I think we might have been quite lucky enjoying as much breeze as we did over the weekend! In any case, another successful event with more entrants (19) and sponsors, and bigger parties than ever before. The word is definitely getting around that this is a great, fun weekend, with some interesting racing to be had too.

In order to blow away the cobwebs after the Club AGM, a few boats turned out the next day, suitably armed with water-bombs and water-pistols, for the Eightsome Reel pursuit race.

Saturday dawned bright and clear, with a light Southerly filling in just before the start of Race 1 off Discovery Bay marina. A mixed fleet of 16 starters, both mono and multi-hull, jostled for the start tight on the Committee Boat end, with Wizard taking the start and an early lead by clearing Peng Chau to port on a single tack, while the rest of the fleet beat around the island in pursuit…

Our final event for 2003 was organised as a ‘treasure hunt’ style race and family BBQ picnic - a chance for all the family to participate in the run up to Christmas.

Preceded by a couple of Rules & Tactics lectures to blow away the pre-season cobwebs, a weekend of Drag Racing was arranged in lieu of the Spring TMR to keep the crews on their toes.

Despite Sunday’s appalling weather, the weekend was a great success, and most boats were able to complete the two races as planned. They were hard work, though, so the ice-cold Cerveza Sol on arrival at either end was very welcome!