“You idiot!” the car park attendant chuckled cheerfully when I told him I planned to do both the 3.8km and 1.4km swims at today’s Rip View Classic in Point Lonsdale. And certainly the conditions were not those to gladden the heart of the open water swimmer – leaden skies and a 30km/h southerly, whipping up a nasty ocean chop.

Undaunted, the long-course contingent of Belugas – Anthony Ferguson, Owen Leggett, Vito Muré, Paul Turner and myself (now where were all those girl Belugas?) – piled into the minibus and headed for the start. On the beach, a lifeguard gave us a race briefing straight out of Fawlty Towers. “Keep the first two buoys on the seaside.” “No, make that the land side”. “Keep the last set of buoys on your left!” “Actually, you need to keep them on your right!”. This prompted much shrugging of shoulders, confused shaking of heads, and quizzical chatter as we lined up at the water’s edge. After what seemed like an eternity shivering in the lazy wind, the crack of the starter’s gun saw the competitors spilling into the water like penguins off an ice floe.

Between the start and the first turning buoy is always an intense part of the race – it feels a bit like being dropped into a giant washing machine full of thrashing humans – clawing arms, sharp elbows and unexpected kicks to the body. This is a time to stay calm, ensure that the goggles stay on, and assertively claim aquatic real estate before finding that elusive patch of green water to settle into a good rhythm. That is, to the degree that any rhythm was possible with heavy swell smacking the swimmers on the left side. It felt pretty rough to me, though the Williamstown 10k swimmers later scoffed at any comparison with the horrendous conditions at WOW some weeks earlier. Owen seemed unbothered by it all, powering through the swell in his usual effortless, silky style to post a sensational third place overall, and 2nd place in his age category. Paul Turner may have had cause to regret his unorthodox training preparation (languishing on an inflatable unicorn in Bali while drinking lemongrass mojitos) but along with the rest of us he ploughed on manfully for finishing honours and the pride of having completing the long course without the indulgence of a second skin of neoprene.

The 1.4km course, which started an hour or two later, is always a firm favourite. Usually the conditions are sunny, the water sparkles, and the beach is crowded with spectators. Today the grey conditions made it all a bit more subdued, but a festive atmosphere prevailed nevertheless and swimmers took to the water against the backdrop of the Spirit of Tasmania making its way across the heads. For those of us who had decided to do both the 3.8k and 1.4k, staying warm was a challenge and there was ample opportunity to regret the decision to once again swim without a wetsuit. Vito miscalculated his wave start time by a mere 40 minutes but was able to join in with the 50 year-old ‘young guns’ and nevertheless have his time recognised.

This time a portly gentleman with grey beard, wide-brimmed sunhat and English accent provided the pre-race briefing, including such helpful tips as to let the lifesavers in their IRBs know if we happened upon a shark. He looked and sounded vaguely familiar but I had no idea until Sue told me later that it was celebrity chef Matt Preston. In fact, for a while I was convinced it was Adrian White.

Once again there were impressive performances aplenty, with 18 Belugas finishing and Sue Cox and Tracy Cameron backing up their great performances from last year with yet another set of podiums. Sandy Iuliano put in a great swim to place 4th, Sue Muir placed 6th, brand new signing Liz Bell showed her class with an excellent 7th (unassisted by a wetsuit), and Wayne Mortensen rounded out the top 10 finishers with a terrific 10th place. Congratulations to all the finishers on a wonderful set of swims – you really do make the club proud!

Then it was on to the traditional and well-justified watering and feeding of the troops, post-mortem of performances, gratuitous advice about training and tactics, and reminiscing about what could have been. Once the swim is over, the itch to complete another is not long in setting in. Luckily we don’t have long to wait, with Pier to Pub just four days away.

Many thanks to club statistician Anthony Ferguson for compiling the results.