Gant Portsea Cup was held at Sorrent Sailing and Couta Boat Club this weekend. It started with the traditional breakfast, which was held upstairs in the dinning room this year instead of the marquee. The breakfast is always a very well attended event because it has some of the cream of Australian sailing come to entrain us. These have included John Bertrand, Tom Sligsby, Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge. This year Andrew Plymton interviewed Jessica Watson inspired us with her journey and gave parents something to think about.

The dangers of bed time stories. As a young girl of 11 Jessica tells us of how her parents would read her bedtime stories. One of these stories was by Jessy Martain. This sowed the seed and five years later she would be off on her own adventure around the World. As if passing the batten, Scarlott also aged 11, won a copy of Jessica’s book.

Above image: Scarlett, Jessica, and Ruby © A.J. McKinnon.

Racing in the Gant Porsea Cup got underway on Sunday at 10.05 for Division 1 and 10.10 for Division 2, after being postponed due to the strong winds on the Saturday. The wind was around 10 knots, with all the models predicting it to increase to around 14 knots during the day. Course 5 was selected for Division 1 and course 4 for Division 2. Both course consisted of a number of triangles and windward returns. The top mark was set at bearing of 120 and a range of 0.8m nm. Unlike the National Championship general recalls were not a feature of the starting procedure, so both fleets got away at their scheduled times.
However rather than the wind increasing in pressure as the day went on it did the exact opposite with the breeze dying as the tide came in. This resulted in the Race committee deciding to abandon racing for Division 2. Ben Fels, the PRO stated “despite working all the options available, unfortunately a fair race for all of Division 2 was not possible’ as a much of the fleet would not be able to finish in the allotted time. The race for this division will resailed at a later date.
Division 1 was able to get a result, although they had their course shortened. Line houners went to C2003 Romy skippered by David Hendy. On board was Jack Abbott one of the many younger crewmembers sailing on the Couta Boats. He is usually sailing a WASP but today he was in charge of shift and tactics aboard the boat.

The winner of the Gant Porsea Cup was C2011 Sorrento Skippered by Lauchie Vaughan, who at 17 is likely to be the youngest person to win the Cup. Lauchie, helmed his father’s, boat, said “ had to sail four 4 years before Dad let me have a helm, but Dad is keen to support us”.

Above image: Winners of Division One, Sorrento, skippered by Lauchie Vaughan with his crew - photo © Hollie Hick

Second place went to C2008 Southerly skippered by Jim Wilshire who traveled all the way from Western Australia. “it is beautiful sailing here, every time we get something different, Port Phillip is truly sensational. While it is a tricky place to sail we have learnt so much”. It is also “ great to sail with the next generation coming trough, their too fast for us old blokes”

Third place was C97 Skippered by Harry Mighell.
Harry said “Port Phillip is always a tricky place to sail but it really turned it on today. There were five or six lead changes on the last beat. Everyone had their time in the sun, but C2003 Romy was there at the end” to take line honors. “It was a great test of tactics with the breeze and the tide”.
It is not by accident that there are so many young people sailing as James Mighell (CBA President) explains “The sailing club, driven by Howard Critchley and the Couta Boat Association have been working very hard to grow the fleet and also to diversify, there are far more young members of the club sailing both youth and teenagers sailing in the class. With time we have been able to diversify the age of the Couta Boat Fleet and hopefully this will continue. There are also more women sailing, with several women helming boats and many crewing.

Following the race, around 250 crews enjoyed the traditional picnic. This year was a little different from previous years as we focused on raising money for the bush fire appeal through the Red Cross. Lunch was provided for free by Sally Meaden and her food truck business, Takn2Mrket and Andrew and Many Gray from Raw Materials. In return for lunch people were asked to donate to the appeal. Close to $1500.00 was collected this is on to of the $1000.00 given by SSCBC and the $1000.00 given by Gant sponsor of the weekend. Thank you to everybody for their contributions.

Above image:  Gant Portsea Cup winner, Sorrento. - photo © A.J. McKinnon.