Yacht Club ship-shape for Festival

HARRY Farnell is making a list, checking it twice, and will make sure everything looks more than nice at the Royal Geelong Yacht Club ahead of the Festival of Sails next week.

The former RGYC commodore will lead a team of 50 volunteers in a working bee on Sunday in preparation to welcome 3000 participants on more than 270 boats.

Mr Farnell, who donated his time to the festival for the past 15 years and the club for close to 50 years, said he wanted to give back after all the joy sailing had brought him over the years.

“At the moment what I’m doing is I walk around the club and work out exactly what has to be done and make sure of all the items that have to be addressed,” he said.

Mr Farnell said the most laborious job was moving ‘hard stand’ boats out of the water and into the boatyard to make way for various vendors and marquees.

“We go through the main clubhouse and junior clubhouse and find out if there’s any jobs we need to do, make sure the lighting works, the garden is in reasonable condition with no rubbish and pick up foreign objects to the marina that could be a hazard,” he said.

“There’s a fair bit in it, and after the working bee we go through and check our list to make sure we’ve ticked all the boxes.”

Festival of Sails chairman Stuart Dickson was thrilled to report a fleet of 276 keelboats would compete at the event, starting with the Passage Race from Melbourne to Geelong on Australia Day, putting this regatta on par with 2018.

Entrants including international comers from the US and an AirAsiafunded Malaysian crew.

“We are looking forward to welcoming competitors over coming days, ahead of what is looking like three spectacular days of sailing on the beautiful flat waters of Corio Bay,” Mr Dickson said.