It felt like winter would never end but here we are at last, the spring has finally sprung.
Welcome to the long awaited start to the 2016-2017 season!
Earlier in the week the forecast was for a light westerly. Unfortunately, that forecast was a little over-optimistic and it was a gusty nor' westerly that greeted us on the day. For the uninitiated, it may have appeared innocuous enough when viewed from the sheltered shoreline but the Primbee green stick with its newly fitted Holfuy weather station told a different story with gusts of 29 knots recorded during the day.
So, with the racing officially abandoned, the day became a great opportunity to converse and catch up with all the off-season news and scuttlebutt...
Off-season Clubhouse News
The canteen has been completely refitted and refurbished. Indeed, during the briefing our club president Richard Hipsley extended a hearty thank you to all those who devoted their valuable time and energy to this major off-season project. It looks amazing and is certainly a welcome improvement to the club facilities.
The boat storage area has much improved racks for the storage of dinghies and the two water hoses are now wall-mounted on retractable reels. Great job and many thanks to Hayden Sellers and co for doing all of this.
Off-season Scuttlebutt
Kurt Griffiths has a newly adopted Nacra 16 sq. Many of us checked it out on Saturday, including Paul English, who has been eagerly looking forward to some close competition this season.
It has also been confirmed by Bob Porter (senior) that Bob Porter (junior) will be sporting a flat top mainsail on the Nacra 5.8 Phantom Menace this season. Not only that, Bob and Johnny have shed about 20kgs between them during the winter. Good job guys! They'll be very hard to catch this season!
In other news, during the recent NSW storms a large tree limb fell on Symphony's carbon mast - narrowly missing the hulls. I managed to obtain a rusty old RSJ and cunningly painted it to look just like a brand new carbon mast. Luckily its not as stiff as the old one. (ha ha)
At the Olympics, the Australian Sailing team were extremely successful again. However, one of the remarkable stories of the Games was that of Santiago Lange, a likeable Argentinian sailor, competing in the mixed Nacra 17s class. He was diagnosed with lung cancer last year - which required removal of a lung. Although physically weakened, he managed to overcome all odds. In the medal race, he incurred two penalties and yet managed to claw his way back to 6th place to win the gold by a single point from the Australians. Amazing! Below is a very moving post-race interview with Santi and his crew.
Welcome to the long awaited start to the 2016-2017 season!
Earlier in the week the forecast was for a light westerly. Unfortunately, that forecast was a little over-optimistic and it was a gusty nor' westerly that greeted us on the day. For the uninitiated, it may have appeared innocuous enough when viewed from the sheltered shoreline but the Primbee green stick with its newly fitted Holfuy weather station told a different story with gusts of 29 knots recorded during the day.
So, with the racing officially abandoned, the day became a great opportunity to converse and catch up with all the off-season news and scuttlebutt...
Off-season Clubhouse News
The canteen has been completely refitted and refurbished. Indeed, during the briefing our club president Richard Hipsley extended a hearty thank you to all those who devoted their valuable time and energy to this major off-season project. It looks amazing and is certainly a welcome improvement to the club facilities.
The boat storage area has much improved racks for the storage of dinghies and the two water hoses are now wall-mounted on retractable reels. Great job and many thanks to Hayden Sellers and co for doing all of this.
Off-season Scuttlebutt
Kurt Griffiths has a newly adopted Nacra 16 sq. Many of us checked it out on Saturday, including Paul English, who has been eagerly looking forward to some close competition this season.
It has also been confirmed by Bob Porter (senior) that Bob Porter (junior) will be sporting a flat top mainsail on the Nacra 5.8 Phantom Menace this season. Not only that, Bob and Johnny have shed about 20kgs between them during the winter. Good job guys! They'll be very hard to catch this season!
In other news, during the recent NSW storms a large tree limb fell on Symphony's carbon mast - narrowly missing the hulls. I managed to obtain a rusty old RSJ and cunningly painted it to look just like a brand new carbon mast. Luckily its not as stiff as the old one. (ha ha)
At the Olympics, the Australian Sailing team were extremely successful again. However, one of the remarkable stories of the Games was that of Santiago Lange, a likeable Argentinian sailor, competing in the mixed Nacra 17s class. He was diagnosed with lung cancer last year - which required removal of a lung. Although physically weakened, he managed to overcome all odds. In the medal race, he incurred two penalties and yet managed to claw his way back to 6th place to win the gold by a single point from the Australians. Amazing! Below is a very moving post-race interview with Santi and his crew.
Upcoming Events
- Next week is Club Championship Round 1 and Pointscore Race 2!!
- Yarrawonga Open Regatta - October 22nd and 23rd - Les and I plan to attend if anyone's interested in coming along.
Windward Returns vs Triangles Discussion
A few sailors have voiced interest in the Large Cats sailing Windward Returns because this is the course sailed when attending regattas. Obviously, a Windward Return course will favour some cat classes above others, so I have a suggestion to maintain fairness. We could make half the races Windward Returns and half the races Triangles by simply assigning all 'odd' Pointscore races as Windward Returns and all 'even' races as Triangle races.
For example, PS1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 would be Windward Returns and PS2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 etc would be Triangles.
Let me know your thoughts/objections - if everyone's agreeable we could easily adopt this for the rest of the season.
Well, that's all for this week -see you all next weekend and here's hoping the winds are more favourable.
Regards, Ross Boyd
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