GEELONG WEEK

The Moth Nationals was a part of Scandia Geelong Week.
RGYC is a nice club with a big compound of hardstand and slips, marina, plus a newish club/bar building and an old boatshed/sailing building. Its mostly run by volunteers.
But for the early moth regatta days it was a construction site, all the hardstand boats were packed up back, slipways covered and huge marquis erected.
From monday to Friday the mothies rigged on the adjacent beach, had our boats stored in a temporary compound in the car park and transitted to the boatshed for sign on/off and showers but few ventured through the works to the bar.
By saturday the building was completed and the food and drink outlets installed, sponsors banners and flags everywhere. By the time we returned from Saturday's late racing the place was full of people, thousands of them. The marina was chock a bock with yachts, not just the few sports boats and trailer yachts we saw during the week but everything from 50 year old 22ft Bluebirds to 100ft Skandia and state of the art Loki. There was a band on stage which could barely be heard over the crowd. There was an aerobatics display then the Moth dash for cash.
And outside the club compound which you need a club issued pass to even get into, the local council has a similar festival all along the water front, more stages and bands, lots more food stalls, and thousands more people.
Not a normal Moth regatta!
And despite all this apparent chaos, we walked casually into the club bar, waited only a few seconds to be served and then pulled up a chair at a table and has a nice chat with some other visitors.
The next night after packing up we had aerobatics again and after dark a fireworks display to backdrop our presentation night.
Amazing, well done RGYC, Scandia and other sponsors, City of Geelong, and all the sailors and locals who were just having a good fun time.
I will have to amend my aversion to big combined regattas after this one.