COA Treasure Hunt 2009
Written by Wayne Robinson
..’Cannons don’t thunder & there’s nothing to plunder, I’m an over 40 victim of fate…’ So goes the words of one of my favourate Jimmy Buffet songs, Pirates over Phorty, lamenting a lost age of a (thought to be) romantic era gone by and the fact that we do grow up and do grow old.
Well boys & girls to a certain extent Jimmy is correct but there is nothing wrong with a bit of nostalgia and being a kid again and so the COA decided to do this with a bit of fun for kids young and old in our first COA Treasure Hunt.
There have been many calls from cruiser owners that there are not many non- racing events being organized for people who just want to cruise and get together with other similar minded owners so the COA looked into organizing an event in & around local waters for sailors who maybe new to the boating scene in Hong Kong or, for those who may wish to involve younger members of their families in their boating and sailing activities.
And so a Treasure Hunt was proposed. As a member of the Hong Kong Classic Car Club I been involved with quite a few Treasure Hunts in and around Hong Kong for many years, so was assigned the task of putting the COA’s first treasure hunt together.
However while vehicular treasure hunts are relatively easy to organize and made competitive by the simple fact that cars run on roads, so use of a cars odometer as well as the time taken to compete the trail are important factors.
Boats are very different and with the exception of picking up clues en route, distance and time would be difficult if not impossible to implement given the wide variety of boats likely to be taking part, so we took a very different approach in forming our treasure hunt. So, with the exception of a Finish Deadline Time of 2:00 pm Sunday, it was decided that time taken to find all the clues was not to be taken into consideration.
Therefore our format was to be both simple and flexible, hopefully providing more of a relaxing but stimulating cruise for everyone aboard
The treasure hunt was to be conducted between the hours from 12:00 noon Saturday 30th May to 02:00 pm on Sunday 31st May. Boats could elect to do the whole event on either Saturday or Sunday between the start finish times or, as we hope most will do, split the hunt for clues equally between both days. Attendance at our Pirates Gathering dinner ashore was to be required however as there would be a Pirate / Seamanship pub type quiz for the crew teams, the results of which will be added to the scores from the treasure hunt.
This format meant boats can decide to sail or motor at any time, or stop for the day and continue on the following day or just call in at any of the ‘Watering Holes’ along the way for a relaxing refresher. Indeed this format will allow for any type of boat may enter; sail or power.
Despite the promise of more entrants in the weeks leading up to our very first Treasure Hunt, only 7 boats took part in the actual event but things don’t always happen overnight and we hope to attract many more when we run the event again next year. Nevertheless, the feed back we had from skippers and crews who did take part do indicate that this new kind of event was very well received especially by the younger members of the crews.
Tim Ridley of “Yacht ?” and Bob ? of ‘Tika Rita’ were beaming when they came in after day one reporting that the kids on their crews (and the oldies too) had a great time. Tim said “ that first question was great, up to that point I was unsure how my kids would take to the idea but when they spotted and counted the Dolphins well before anyone else they were fully involved from that point on asking the next clues for the rest of the day”
The clues and questions on the trail were a mixture of local history, yacht navigation and local geography meant to be informative as well as testing existing knowledge at various levels so kid’s wouldn’t feel left out. Some questions did require sound knowledge on boat safety too. Indeed three skippers on returning to Middle Island mounted a joint challenge upon me that maybe one of the questions was incorrectly worded as they said they had all used every reference possible to find the answer. Posing the question “ what do 7 short blasts in succession mean”? certainly did stimulate their grey matter and now the answer to that question is firmly imbedded in there for evermore.
Other clues along the trail involved simple navigation exercises using a hand-bearing compass, charts etc to locate a particular location and then putting together a shore party. Watching crews dig up half the beach to find a clue message in a bottle buried in the sand was amusing – especially when a skull & crossbones sign had been put in place marking the exact spot !
Mathtew Swainson “ Yacht?” said he really enjoyed having the opportunity to put theory into practice when it came to the navigation work.
The Saturday evenings Pirates Gathering was a great success with 80 Pirates mostly in Pirate garb enjoying food comprising of Spanish Paella, poached Salmon and a mixture of curries – at an excellent value of just $180 p/h.
There was a great turnout in costumes too, especially by the kids and judging the winners was not an easy task. During the dinner Quizmaster ‘Jade’ of the ‘Far Side’ tested the teams knowledge on sailing and pirates with a hugely popular mind bending quiz.
Over all results the Cobb Cooker was won by a joint effort of a visiting crew French Yacht NEO with ABC members Win Kaaka and Tristan Stewart.
In all it was a great weekend and one we hope to repeat next year. And if the bar talk is to be believed we will have a much greater turn out so get your pirate outfits dusted off.
In the meantime, for those who missed the event but would like to obtain the COA’s Treasure Trail list of clues to follow and complete the trail in their boats in their own time the COA is making a slightly modified version of the Treasure Trail available to members for a small donation to our Treats Charity fund minimum HK $100.
Of course there will be no prizes at the end but we garrantee that you, your crew and the kids will have a fun day out on the water following the trail made up from a mixture of questions on local history, yacht navigation and local geography.
Our trail ends at a popular restaurant and the time required without stops is around 6 hours, if you decide to stop & hop ashore at any of the ‘Watering Holes’ of course that time needs to be added.
Wayne Robinson
