Steeple-chasing the Otago mole

Last month I left the good Professor and his yacht Yvonne “jilling about” at the Otago Harbour Heads just on dusk on Christmas Eve 1909. In 1928 Scott wrote about the wild events of that night in an article in Yachting magazine. Yvonne was one of nine entrants manoeuvring for the start of the Otago Yacht Club’s Rudder Cup Ocean Race to Oamaru and back. There were a hundred miles to go and an uneasy calm, a faint southeasterly air and a light drizzle.

Now the starting boat, Commodore A.C. Hanlon’s big launch Inishfree, with the Blue Peter flying, made for the entrance. The nine yachts followed, running before the light breeze. All were carrying every inch of canvas they could set, slatting about in the oily swell kicked up by the last of the ebb at the entrance.

Even though fired the starting gun.