A sailing day | Lokdavidson

A sailing day.

Monday January 26 2026

I wasn’t sure that I was up for this adventure, or that it would even come off.

McCrae Yacht club is hosting an Australia day regatta across the long weekend

And I really wanted to sail in it. I hadn’t raced in a regatta since 1990 but the experiences have remained in my heart as important part of my identity. I always thought that it would be good to do again. I didn’t think that it would be 36 years before I did.

“Fleetwood” is my fourteen foot wooden “Mini Quest” catamaran that I raced seriously on Port Phillip bay off Carrum beach from age 17 to 25. I am naturally a quite good sailor, with a feel for boat speed and a brave tactical approach, but I am not a risk taker when it comes to stronger winds. They scare me. I like a nice breeze at most. I’ve also forgotten a lot of stuff.

From sailing once a year at Balnarring for the last fifteen years, I recently felt the need to sail more often, and to race because I’m getting older and it’s not going to happen by itself. I am not going to take it as seriously as I did when I was young. My boat is forty years old and I don’t have the energy to put into keeping her in tip top racing condition. I do enjoy the maintenance stuff though.

I’ve moved Fleetwood to Rye yacht club where she lives under a tarpaulin in the boat racks with some other boats around her.

Two weeks ago I finally entered two races, back to back in winds of fifteen – twenty knots, with the intention of getting through the start line and maybe to the first mark.

Just like riding a bike, my muscle memory kicked in and, though I was very rusty and clumsy, I got through both races without disgracing myself, though tacking in the strong breeze didn’t go well.

At 62 years old, I’m feeling like a half novice and half “what the hell am I thinking!”, especially the next morning. The scratches and stiffness are brutal. But I faced a lot of long held fears in that race, fears that I thought I would never again have the chance to conquer. Before a sailing day every year over the past fifteen I have always been very anxious and fearful. Capsizing, breaking the boat and being in the sea, as opposed to being on it. It get anxious about the logistics of setting up the boat, asking for help to move it and getting home in time. Without attending to it, this type of anxiety has plagued me for years, for ever.

So my plan for this weekend tackled all of this. It was possibly going to fail at the outset but I thought, Let’s just give it a crack and call it an adventure.

I paid my $100 to enter the regatta online. My boat is so old that my class, Mini Quest wasn’t even listed but I confirmed with McCrae yacht club that I could sail despite not having a current yardstick (Handicap). I wasn’t after a trophy so if I was disqualified that was fine with me. I couldn’t sail on the Saturday as I was working and decided that I would sail from Rye to McRae on Sunday morning and join however many races I could and maybe leave my boat at McCrae overnight, race again the next day and sail back to Rye after all of that. There were other logistics to be considered too, mostly involving getting back to Rye to my car.

I had the distinct impression that Fleetwood seemed very surprised, as if awakened from a hibernation when I pulled the cover off yesterday morning. With quite a delay due to important repairs to my mast that I hadn’t seen before, I left at 12:00 and got to McCrae around 12;45, an easy downwind cruise in the shallows. The people in McCrae’s tower signed me in and said there were four races happening in one session. This meant that when all the boats finished one race, the next race would start.

Each race takes about an hour. The first race had already started. I was already tired.

The wind was 15 – 20 knots. I had a strong feeling that I wouldn’t get through the three races available to me. It’s hard work sailing an off-the beach catamaran, especially when you’re not sailing fit, race fit and have a weak right leg in the middle of rehab from a long term tennis injury. But this what I came to do. I wanted to see how I would go against similar boats in Arrows and Paper Tigers, and to join in a regatta with sailors I didn’t know. I wanted the challenge.

This was serious racing. I could see that everyone out there knew what they were doing and were very good, on modern boats, all race fit and motivated. Itwasn’t there to mess with their mission. I would stay out of their way but use them to drag me along.

The start line brought back memories of counting down using a waterproof watch and trying to time it perfectly at the starboard end of the line. It’s amazing how much more relaxed about it I am now, and how well I did actually start considering I just followe the other boats. Two Paper Tigers (obviously gun sailors), three Arrows (two were very good) and a couple of little trimarans who must have a sailed a different course I think, all started together and I kept pace for a while but stuffed up my first few tacks so dropped off the pace fairly quickly.

I found my way round the course following the last Arrow, though I didn’t know where the finish line was so I just sailed past the crash boat. It proved to be wrong but that’s totally fine with me. I got round the course and decided that I would chase down that last Arrow in the next race.

At this point I’m already exhausted. I don’t care that I’m wet and sore. I do care that I only have 2 minutes to swig down some water and calm myself down a bit. I got very tangled in ropes in the first race, rushed every tack and tacked too early for the windward mark each time, but I stayed upright and in touch with the last Arrow.

A slightly better start to the second race and I was in front of my rival Arrow but watched the other Arrows and Paper Tigers sail off into the distance as expected. This time I was calmer and more switched on. If anything, the wind had got stronger, but I was in control of my boat, managing the sudden gusts and shifts safely and confidently. I wasn’t trying to sail my fastest, just to keep calm, safe and in the right direction.

Again, I sailed through what turned out to be the wrong finish line, but I was ahead of my rival Arrow. I wasn’t last and, even though that would have been fine, this was better, and certainly enough.

I was buggered. Two of those races was enough for this old fella. Fleetwood had hung together too. What a trooper she is.

Back to the beach where my wife was waiting and I called it a day and a regatta.

My body wasn’t going to be up to coming back the next day, even though winds were looking like being lighter. I’d got what I could out of this experience, and I still had to sail upwind the nine kilometres back to Rye. I did the first twenty minutes on trapeze with no respite but then sat down on the hull and took it easier for the last half hour, enjoying the

sail, the noise, the wet, the wind, nature giving me stuff to work with to get to my destination. Thankfully, four generous fellas helped me up the beach with the boat. Ou always hope that will happen but fear it won’t.

Today is the next day and I’m stiff, sore, have a headache and some decent sunburn. I don’t know how much strong wind sailing I’ll do in future. That was hard. The less serious sailing at Rye will suit me better than getting in the way of the serious and excellent sailors at McCrae I think.

So the odd blast will be fun but I’m looking forward to 8-10 knots one day out on Port Phillip bay, away from everything else, in nature ,challenging myself in a less frantic way than I did yesterday. But who knows, I must just give it another crack next year.