This year is looking to be a good one for the monos with some boat movements as well as some new faces coming to the club.
MG14 : there are at least two new MG14s to the club. Geoff Davis has number 414 and will be sailing with his son, and Johns old boat Skulker has been purchased by Daniel Wilson (I believe of Flying Ant fame). Welcome both to the club.
Sharpies : I have bought another boat from South Australia called Space Monkeys and will be sailing with a new crew Adam Awad (an ad here - I am still looking for a third hand). The boat is a bit older than Maniac but totally refurbished and did very well at the last nationals.
Dylan has moved to be forward hand on Pleasure & Pain to replace Frank - although a recent accident at the snow may slow him down initially. They will be the ones to watch out for in light conditions.
John Richardson is skippering Mainiac with Paul Leaudais and Jess Ellem as crew - he seems to be pretty confident of beating dad.
Other news : With the nationals for the 505s in Sydney this year we are expecting Dean and Angus to be more regular starters. Amelia has purchased a Laser Radial moving from the crews union to the skippers union. I am also reliably informed that a number of Manly Juniors will be contesting the afternoon racing which is fantastic news - we have a junior version of the course to enable them to finish in about the same elapsed time as the faster boats.
Hopefully we will have most of the other boats back on the water this year as well as newcomers. See you on the water on Saturday.