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Easter 2010 saw a few Victorian Stingrays compete in the Gippland Lakes Yacht Club annual Easter Regatta. It is the second year running that a motley crew of sailors calling themselved the "Redundant Catamaran Association" have made the trip to the picturesque Paynesville on the Gippsland Lakes to compete in a friendly and well run regatta. The "Redundant" boats included two Stingrays, a QB3, a Hobie20 and a just recently joined NacraF18 (only this year made redundant by being out of production for 5 years). They certainly looked formiddable amongst the local and imported (and not redundant) Mosquito cats.
Mitch Bayliss and James Mare sailed atop "Bounty Hunter" still on loan from Brett Lienert in SA whilst another Stingray in #330 "Flying High" was sailed by 'Big Tony' and Gale, a team of highly experienced big multi sailors. Flying High went into the regatta completely untested by its new sailors... or anybody for that matter... and it was looking good until half way through a very tough 30nm race... damage was incurred but to the crew's credit they pushed on in 25kts and still finished the race, albeit with the port hull nearly full of water! Great effort and Flying High will live to fight another day!
The racing format was predominantly passage races which was able to occur thanks to the large fleet of large Multihulls and Trailer Sailers attracted to this beautiful location. Saturday afternoon's race was a single lap of Raymond Island which is seperate from Paynesville by 'The McMillan Straights' which are notoriously light and shifty. The start was a good one in 10-12kts breeze with Mitch jumping to and early race lead and extending it as the wind increased to a solid 15 once out of the lee of the Island.... unfortunately the option of just sailing round the island was ignored and a significant wide birth was given by the leading stingray allowing the Mosquitos to pass. In the end the Bounty Hunter was the first of the redundant boats with, the Hobie20, QB3, Stingray and F18 in that order on yardstick.
Sundays race was to be a "Classic 30" leading us to the far reaches of the lakes.... first hurdle... the straights... 45minutes, One Mile, and a VERY near incident between the fleet and the Raymond Island Ferry (which is ALWAYS close hauled on starboard  ) and the straights were over. At this stage with the exception of one mosquito a handkerchief could have been placed over most of the fleet. From this point on all bets were off as the fleet was assaulted by 15-25kts on all points of sail across the course. Again Mitch led the Redundant boats but today the F18 had tidied their act up and were in a tussle with the Hobie20 and the QB3 not far behind that. In the end the order was Stingray-Hobie10-F18-QB3-Stingray with a mozzies once again filling the top yardtick positions and one of them taking line honours due to a very brave and well sailed 15nm spinnaker leg! Of course the only photos are of the drifting in the straights....
Mondays race was a large traingle/windward/leeward course... it seemed to pale into insignificance due to the amazing racing done in the days previous! The wind was light 5-10 with the final scores being Stingray-Hobie20-QB3-F18... again mozzy's filled the real racing!
This regatta was a true pleasure and comes highly recommended to all cat sailors - in particular stingray sailors! Hope to see you there next year!
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