Folie à deux,  translates loosely as a condition where two closely associated individuals share similar delusional beliefs. One can only wonder why every sail boat jointly owned does not carry this name. Perhaps this became apparent when the Cygnet 20 of that name, the tiniest boat in the fleet, and sailed by its co-owners,  showed a clean pair of heels to the Port Macquarie Yacht Club fleet in last Sunday’s scheduled river race from Settlement Point to Dennis Bridge and return.

With a light fluky breeze barely reaching 3 knots the race was delayed until 30 minutes after the published start, by which time the breeze had increased to a steady 5 knots, allowing a race start. 

Folie à Deux, not being an official entry did not actively contest the start, but nonetheless was not too far adrift of the leading boats. Unofficial timekeepers had that boat recording fastest times for all segments of the three leg race, while the remainder of the fleet duelled behind her.

The official start was keenly contested with only a cigarette paper separating the first three boats to cross the start line. Any of Tribal Wave, Solar Coaster or Cool Change could have claimed starting honours, while down the course after leading for some hundreds of meters, Cool Change settled into second place, with Tribal Wave slipping back to third. Third Man and Galene both appeared to misjudge their starts and trailed, with Galene leading the chase, and shortening the distance to the leading boats. 

Mere seconds separated Solar Coaster and Cool Change over the first leg, while Tribal Wave held onto third ahead of Galene and Third Man. The breeze became fluky over the next leg, and the OOD sensibly shortened the race turning for the return at the Maria River mark.

With Folie à Deux well down the return leg, Solar Coaster rounded the mark leading Cool Change Galene, Third Man and Tribal Wave in that order. With breeze filling in from the east, Solar Coaster found the new breeze first and extended its lead over the rest of the fleet.  All boats enjoyed and made good use of the building breeze over the final leg. The order over the finishing line was Solar Coaster, Galene, which, after a tacking duel, overtook Cool Change in the shadow of the line, then Cool Change, Third Man and Tribal Wave.  Once handicaps were applied three minutes covered the finishing times of the first four finishers, a credit to all skippers sailing to their handicaps. Tribal Wave was handicap winner, with Cool Change second and Galene in third place.

The race program takes a break for several weeks allowing for maintenance and auditing prior to the commencement of the 2025/2026 sailing season in August.