Race against time
CLAIRE Cunningham is one of Hobart’s most talented and versatile women sailors.
But she has been given a different task afloat next weekend — setting the course for the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania/Boags Navigation and Seamanship Cruise.
Cunningham, a past rear commodore of the RYCT, was the winning navigator in last year’s cruise and, as such, traditionally earns the task of planning this year’s Cruise down the River Derwent and D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
The role of committee boat also falls to the boat on which Claire was aboard last year — her parents’ Chris and Ann Cunningham’s dark blue hulled Buizen 48, BJ.
Claire is a regular crew member and frequent navigator of racing yachts from SB20s to ocean racing keelboats, last year adding onwater rally navigating to her skills.
In addition to her own experience in last year’s cruise she has received assistance in planning next weekend’s event from the RYCT cruising ommittee and other previous participants.
This year’s RYCT/Boag’s Navigation Cruise will be the 60th annual event held by the club and is open to motor cruisers and yachts.
The concept of the event is to compete in a time trial on water, similar to a car rally.
The navigator on each competing boat must identify numerous landmarks on the Derwent and Channel from cryptic clues.
Volunteers from the RYCT will be at checkpoints along the way to confirm check-in times, which are the measure of accuracy of each boat’s navigator and eventually determine the overall winner.
Entries will be received at the RYCT until midweek with an expected fleet of about 20 boats.
Starting from the club marina next Friday at 7.30pm, this year’s cruise will take the fleet down the Derwent and Channel overnight and to finish late Saturday afternoon at Kettering.
At the end of the cruise, crews will gather for a social function at the Kettering Boat Club and on the return trip to Hobart on Sunday there will be a raft-up in Barnes Bay.
Heritage focus
A DATE has been set for an important seminar in Tas- mania that draws together representatives of the large number of maritime museums, nautical collections, displays and maritime centres around the state as well as interested members of the public.
The seminar to be held at the East Coast Heritage Museum at Swansea on May 23 — central for people from all parts of the state.
The seminar is organised by a widely representative group called the Maritime Heritage Organisations of Tasmania.
It enables a general sharing of ideas and latest news from museums and other nautical centres all of which celebrate Tasmania’s wealth of maritime heritage, places and vessels.
The panel of speakers will cover subjects such as accessibility to sites, volunteer surveys and the storage of, and caring for, objects, collections and information.
The seminar will run from 10am to 3pm and bookings can be made by May 17 to john. wadsley@tmag.tas.gov.au, and queries to John Wadsley on 0417 487 289.
Shipwrecks set sail
MEANWHILE a fascinating travelling exhibition covering shipwrecks around Australia, both coastal and inland, is still running at the Dover Museum and Art Gallery south of Huonville but will soon move to other venues in the state.
The exhibition, with Tasmanian stories well represented, is a joint project hosted by the Australian Maritime Museum Council and the Australian National Maritime Museum and was opened by Tasmanian Governor Professor Kate Warner in February.
The exhibition was drawn from 65 submissions.
Curators have designed it to be displayed in a variety of spaces including museums and maritime centres, as well as such areas as schools and libraries, and also to be supplemented in different locations with stories and objects of local interest.
The Dover centre is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 4.30pm and the display will stay there until the end of the month before moving on to other parts of the state.