ORCV Hutchwilco Melbourne to Stanley (M2S).

Short Sleeves!

Short sleeves in Bass Strait! Not sure I even remember that, but there you have it. That's what they are experiencing aboard Dry White, at present. We thought it might have been shots from a different time, but some of the crew have not been on the boat at the same time, so we just have to accept it as the truth, hard as it may be!

Many thanks to Sailor Kaz (Young) for the great images and wonderful commentary below. She's a lovely person and handy yachty, too. Over to you, Kaz. "Now who said ocean racing needs to be hard work? After a night of constant drizzle and rain in the pen at Queenscliff, we set of with a reasonably light start for our charge out through the Heads and off to Stanley. The trip through the Heads was unusualy calm and if not for the appearance of a little ocean swell, you could have been mistaken for thinking that we were still inside the Bay."

Up the pointy end with John Weatherley.

"Far from the forecast bad weather, we have so far been pleasantly surprised with blue sky and sunshine. Dots of colour have sprung up all around the horizon as the boats, us included, try out the various spinnaker options we have, to find the one that will propel us through the fleet the quickest!"

"Despite the constant Melbourne radio broadcasts alerting us to strong winds, we've rolled the banana lounges onto the deck, the layers have gradually come off and the sunscreen been applied. The Minister For All Things Interior has excelled on our boat. I cannot remember the last time I have been offered smoked salmon and cream cheese wraps as a snack! Nor can I remember the last time I was treated to the wonderful sight of so many 'hard core yachting blokes' prancing about in thermal underwear. Oh the joys - how much can one girl take?"

Keeping out of the sun is Commodore, Don Fraser.

"Of course the downside of our 'pleasure cruise' is the sacrifice of good racing wind speed, but hey, I guess you can't have it all? And if there's going to be light-ish winds for a little while, then you may as well partake in the finer pleasures whilst you are waiting for the wind God to roll in. Please note that in this instance the term, 'finer pleasures', definitely applies to our catering and not the men in tights!"

"Roll in Huey!" (God of wind)

Simon Dryden driving and I love this image for the red kite on the horizon. Now that would be some motivation to keep in front!

In Stanley currently it is around 18 degrees with Nor'west breezes in the low teens... Peter Blake's record with Kontrol, of 14 hours and 36 minutes looks reasonably safe for the moment. The leaders would have to be in by 1930hrs tonight, which is doable, but the breeze may not hold in long enough. All will be revealed at the 1805hrs sked, of course.

If you want to follow it all with the pretty graphics via the sat trackers from Yellowbrick - see HERE for Flash empowered devices and HERE for non-Flash. NB. As per the Information tab on the tracker site (bottom right), the Yellowbrick Trackers transmit every 30 minutes, the map will update whenever it receives new information. A big thank you to all the people commenting on the FB page about the trackers - great information. Cheers.

Right then, we had 37 vessels in the M2S, but Chikara Outlaw withdrew a few days ago, so it's 36 now - Addiction, Alibi, Alien, Arch Rival, Bandit, Biddy Hu II, Cadibarra 8, Calm, Cavarlo, Dekadence, Dark and Stormy, Dry White, eXtasea, FullyNPushing, Gusto, Halcyon, Independent Endeavour, Jazz Player, Kiss Goodbye to MS, Magazan 53, Magic, Matrix, Mille Sabords, Mirrabooka, Nutcracker, Pretty Woman, Scarlet Runner, Slinky Malinky, Spirit of Downunder, Tevake II, Trybooking.com, Under Capricorn, Weekend Option, White Noise, XLR8 and Yoko, which is excellent. Well done and good luck to all.

ORCV Land also extends on to the ORCV Facebook page, so make sure you go and "Like" the page, now. 229 Souls already have and thank you to each and every one of you.

© John Curnow, ORCV Media

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