Carnarvon is a sailor's dream- which doesn't prevent most from staying ashore. There's two regular events; Hutchie and myself every Thursday avo for the sunset cruise. Hutchie has this sorted, inviting everyone along and then mixing coctails and nibbling on French cheeses while bobbing up and down between the One Mile Jetty and Tegg's Channel. Very gentlemanlike. I'm usually in a wetsuit reading out speeds from the GPS: 'thirteen... and a half- BEAR OFF!- fourteen, YAH! Hold on! 16.5 knots!' ... the whole boat submerged and spray flying to halfway up the mast... there's beer aboard but you have to be quick before the salt spoils the taste.

The other outlet for the windheads is the local Windrush-series. I believe that the Carnarvonites are usually State and National champions in this class. Exmouth and Coral Bay have fleets too, as well as the clubs Down South. About thirteen cats came to Coral Bay, two of them Hobie 16's and I sailed one of them. It's hard to imagine a prettier place to race. White beaches, clear water and the coral formations flash by below the surface.

There's very few sailors who don't take pride in their sailing. Even on a lump of a boat, with hessian sails and barnacles all over the bottom, the owner/captail will usually correct everyone with just a bit more or less sheet, a touch of traveller and then sit back radiating happiness if the barge gains an imperceptible fraction of speed. On a fast boat this sheetjuggling becomes a religious rite. Even when there's no hurry and people are trying to roll a cigarette: the telltales shall be kept streaming! An end in itself. It's a bit like cardriving, in which 95% of men genuinely believe that their driving is above average. To keep that belief- avoid racing! The few races I've entered I've come last.

Now a Hobie should be quicker than a Windrush, and with just flyweight Andi and me aboard I thought we'd give it our best. But the first race was in a gusting storm so we added shifting ballast in the form of Eric.

Just after the start we were hightailing the leaders when Mark capsised just in front of us. Great sailing! Spray everywhere, watching for gusts, Andi crashing into the mast twice when we nosedived, huddling with the three of us in the upwind-aft corner of the tramp to keep the nose up. AAAAAAhhh! And all the time trying to find a balance between speed and safety with two boats still ahead of us. And so it stayed till the finish. Good memories of the last race, where we drifted just behind the startboat and the moment the raceleader moved to the flag we pulled on sheets, caught a gust and overtook the whole fleet in the first twenty seconds.

The good sailors on Windrushes easily outclued us at the start, outpointed us upwind and probably did a whole heap of things that I don't even know about a lot better. But that extra bit of boatspeed brought us to a second, third and fourth place. The other Hobie was outsailed twice in three races, but it had the handicapper aboard. Need I say more???