I arrived at the sailing club today to find Digger and Roger sitting on their deck chairs in the shade of Grey Fox sipping cups of tea. The first sailing day back after the Christmas New Year break is often a slow one as I guess most people are still in holiday mode or perhaps returning from a national or state title regatta. For Digger and Roger who are seasoned retirees I suppose this is standard operating procedure for them. Anyway the first race day post holiday usually runs at a relaxed pace allowing for time to catch up with sailing friends and listen to their holiday stories. It’s a nice pace for creating the right conditions for kicking of the second half of the sailing year. Even the weather cooperated with us, dishing up a gentle 5 to 8 knot Easterly and a pleasantly overcast sky.
The breeze was a little uncooperative making the setting up of the course a challenge for Hugh and Paul our duty crew. They did a great job to get us all started and finished.
TY Starters today consisted of, Momentum with Ray, Barry and Roy aboard, Frou Frou with Alan, Ian and me aboard and as mentioned above, Grey Fox with Digger and Roger aboard I don’t know about how the other sailors felt but just having a few weeks away from sailing makes me rusty and today was no exception. We all got away with a clean start, but things didn’t go exactly to plan after that for Frou Frou and Grey Fox. Frou Frou’s usual manoeuvring precision was a little slower to begin with me, Alan and Ian re-establishing our team work again after many weeks of not sailing together. During the last triangle I was blinded by sun screen in the eyes (don’t you hate that) and was steering with my eyes shut for most of the up wind and downwind legs. Ian recons it was the best I had steered all race and should shut my eyes and chill out more often. I tend to agree. Even sailing with Zen power we couldn’t narrow the gap between us and Momentum who even with the small headsail set were disappearing into the distance. Grey Fox on the other was experimenting with spinnaker sets that, from Digger’s and Rogers’s perspective, did not benefit her forward progress much. No doubt with practice Digger and Rodger will be all over it in no time.
The general feeling expressed by those who sailed on the day was of pleasure. It’s nice to be back on the water and mixing it with our sailing family.
Pointscore 12 Results
Place Boat Name Corrected time (PBH) in minutes
First Momentum 89.14
Second Frou Frou 90.56
Third Grey Fox 98.08
Weather conditions are looking promising for next week’s race day so make the effort and come on down to the Lake for your New Years dose of hamburgers.
Coming Events
Lake Illawarra Yacht Club is running the Australia Day Regatta. Information Fliers for the event are on the PKSC sign on table.
An event not to be missed is the St Georges Basin and Sussex inlet TY Regatta is again being run over the weekend of 31 January to 1 February. So get organised to participate in this one.
The End Trev