Monohull News

23 August, 2010 : With the season starting only a week away just a quick reminder of how the different monohull courses will work. For the Club Championship you must decide before the first heat what course you will sail and stay with that for the series. For the pointscore you can sail either as long as you let us know which ones. After discussion with some of the sailors on the weekend we will make the default for MG14 the long course and for NS14 and less experienced MG14 sailors the short course. Our intention is to have a signon sheet where you specify which course you are sailing.

23 August, 2010 : Only a few weeks to go till the season starts and everyone I talk to in the monohull fleet is itching to get back on the water. It looks to me as though we will have a bumper season with a few new boats to hit the water, and the MG14 championships being held at PKSC creating more interest in that class.

We have one extra confirmed Sharpie with Tim Butler having purchased a boat from Tasmania. Tim will sail semi-regularly at or club and also at Port Hacking. Pleasure and Pain have a new sheethand who will share the duties with Richard, on Mainiac we tried out a new 3rd crew last Saturday in freezing 30 knot winds - if he enjoyed that he will enjoy anything ! Road Kill will be the dark horse this year with Nicholas and Alex joining the crew to make an all Marzano combination.

I have had a few people contact me trying to find MG14s to sail at the club - unfortunately there is a severe shortage of reasonably prices boats available so I expect as they do come on the market they will be snapped up. I have even heard rumours (unconfirmed) of a husband and wife team ! John will be sailing the MG he bought at the end of last season with Bryn who was his Flying Ant crew. Late news is that Hayley has just purchased an MG and will be sailing with one of her sons !

Lachlan Beavan has purchased Kamikaze from John and will be sailing in the Flying Ants with his brother Nicholas - lots of family harmony expected there.

Sam and Kevin have purchased Franks 505 to use at the club as theirs does not arrive back from overseas (World Titles) till a long way into the season. Neil has purchased a new I14 so we could have two of those on the water.

Brad and his team have had great success with the junior training fleet - with his target this year being to have the kids racing from early in the season. This is really great for the future of the monohull fleet as it will not be long before the kids want to start racing in the afternoon as well !

As mentioned previously we have been doing a lot of testing of a pointscore system where the long and short courses are combined. The tests worked out very well last season so this season all the Pointscore events will cover the whole fleet regardless of which course you sail. The Club Championship will still be split between the two courses for this season.

I will see you all on the water on the 11th.

24 July, 2010 : Some good news just in on the Sharpie front - we have one more confirmed Sharpie for next season already - Tim Butler has purchased T826 and will be sailing at our club as well as Port Hacking. Also, the Sharpie Association has announced cash prizes for this years national championships for Junior skippers. A poster with the details is here

Only 48 days to go till the first race of the season !!

27 May, 2010 : Well - the presentation night is now over and what a fantastic night it was - thanks to all those who made it such a success. We had a really great turnout from the monohulls. Results have all been published elsewhere, what is really impressive is the way the monohull class has grown at the club. During the season we split the fleet into short and long course to cater for all levels of monohull performance and had separate championship and pointscore for each. The Short Course Championship was only decided after countback as two boats had equal points and equal results ! Other highlights from the season included the resurgence of the Sharpie class, many excellent results in championships, some new MG14s and NS14s - the list goes on. As Hayden would say - "How good was that ??"

For me, one of the real highlights was that Dylan Zanin was awarded the new Junior Sailor of the Year trophy - he works tirelessly with the junior classes in the morning and is one of the best Sharpie forward hands on Mainiac in the afternoon.

We can now look forward to next season - it seems an awfully long way away. Some fine-tuning of the monohull competitions will take place. During last season some testing was done on how to combine the results of the short and long course events - and we are now confident that we have a good way of doing this. For next season, the monohull pointscore will cover the whole fleet from both courses while the club championship will still be based on short and long course. If this is successful then the following season we will combine the championship events. Some other ideas being raised include a trophy for best junior in the pointscore, and class based trophies if we have a number of boats in an individual class (sharpie, MG, FA, etc). Please let us know any ideas you have to improve our class !

Regular updates prior to the season will be available on our website so keep checking here for the latest news !

1 May, 2010 : The Monohull news section for the 09-10 season has been archived here