TY Delegates Report 11 September 2010

Resilience, in relation to a person’s ability to respond to a changing environment, is a term you may have heard used more frequently these days. Building personal resilience seems to be a priority for organisations with increasing psychological injury rates and for our society where mental illness is an increasing social issue. The ability to recover from negative events, a loss or setback, is indeed an admirable and desirable quality. Some schools are teaching students to be resilient with the objective of preparing them to adapt and recover from life’s ups and downs in a rapidly changing world. As my previous sentence implies there is strong evidence that resilience can be taught and built up over time. People with strong levels of resilience tend to be more confident, more open to new experiences and more willing to take calculated risks, with the inherent knowledge that whatever happens they will cope (Edelman, S).

Sailing provides me with lots of opportunities to build resilience. This happens either through recovering from individual or team errors, or by observing other sailors bounce back after things turned to s_**t for them. Usually this happens immediately after you think you are looking famous. It is inspiring to see someone recover after they have experienced adversity. It reinforces the positive aspects of life. You can and do recover, and, in most circumstances, with an increased capacity to cope and make the best of the next setback.

During this Saturday’s first race of the season I was fortunate to be a very close observer of an act of resilience. My loyal crew Alan, (as usual giving more than100%), slipped and fell overboard. I must admit to being a little tardy with pulling up to retrieve him. Alan swam hard to catch Frou Frou. Five minutes or so later he was back aboard, wet cold and exhausted from his efforts. But Alan recovered. He changed into some dry clothes and got back on the rail, went on to do some fantastic crew work including spinnaker sets, jibes and takedowns, plus contributed to our race tactic that saw us bounce back and finish just a couple of minutes behind our rivals Rob Porter and crew in the well sailed Hail Storm with Barry and crew aboard Momentum finishing clear first. As an aside it did demonstrate to us a need to practice man overboard drills.

The famous car maker Henry Ford has been quoted as saying, “Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement”. For us who are hooked on sailing, having a go and gaining satisfaction from the ability to recover from negative events may well be one of the reasons why sailing is such a rewarding experience. Perhaps it strengthens our resilience to life’s big and small setbacks, and makes us better able to say “what can I do next to recover?”, rather than “why me?

Results:

First across the line were Barry, John and Ray aboard Momentum followed closely by Rob, J and S, with Alan and Trev aboard Frou Frou relegated to third on the day.

Amendment:

In last weeks addition of Newsport a TY away events calendar was published. I neglected to include the Marley Point race in the list of events. Please find below an amended version of the events calendar to post up on your fridge.

TY Away Events Calendar 2010 -2011 Season

Event	Date	Location	Club
Heaven Can Wait 6 and 24 hour yacht race	2-3 October 2010	Lake Macquarie	Toronto Yacht Club
Jervis Bay Challenge	6 - 7 November 2010	Jervis Bay NSW	Jervis Bay Sailing Club
Lord Mayors Cup	20 – 21 November 2010	Lake Illawarra NSW	Lake Illawarra Yacht Club
ACT Regatta	4 - 5 December 2010	Lake Burley Griffin ACT	Canberra Yacht Club
St Georges Basin Regatta	5 - 6 February 2011	St Georges Basin NSW	St Georges Basin and Sussex Inlet Yacht Club
Marley Point TY Overnight Race	March 12 -13 2011	Gippsland Lakes Victoria	Lake Wellington Yacht Club
Bay to Bay T Y Race	1 - 2 May 2011	Great Sandy Straights Queensland	Tin Can Bay and Harvey Bay Yacht Clubs
TY Nationals	24 – 26 April 2011	Lake Burley Griffin ACT	Canberra Yacht Club
Wintersun	25 – 26 June 2011	Runaway Bay to Morton Bay Queensland	Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron

Note: We have room on board Frou Frou for one extra most Saturday sailing weeks, and I believe other TY’s have additional capacity as well. No guarantees but please let me know if you would like a ride, we may be able to organise it.

See you back on the water next week

TY Delegate Trevor.