Our annual Club Xmas Party is only a few weeks away now ( 19/12/2021 ) so if you are keen to meet all the sailors and volunteers book yourself in by either emailing the club or sign up over the weekend while your kids are sailing $15.00 for adults $10.00 for kids and a family of 4 $40.00 . It will be held at the sailing club starting around 11am should be lots of fun like last year.
8.30 am Sunday Juniors :
As usual we had a large bunch of kids turning up for sailing either for practice or just their first go at sailing so we were soon all out there well except for Taylah who was off doing her instructors course and yes she passed rigging boats and generally getting everyone ready . The weather was mild with light roughly northerly winds at around 4 knots which was just perfect for the beginners and even the bic sailors were managing to get around the reaching course in light conditions which the bics dont like so you really have to sail . Our newest assistant assistant sailing instructor Reece took one of our first time sailors out and showed him the ropes , we say assistant assistant because reece wants so much to be an instructor but australian sailing says he has to be 12 so we decided to start him early anyway as he is so keen and doing a great job and yes Reece I do watch you on sundays and so far thumbs up mate . Speaking of instructors both Jade and Dan completed their assistant instructor courses as well and yes they passed. Jason and Guy set a reach course which they had to adjust as the wind constantly shifted but everyone had a good sail on the day I think there was even some capsize practice .
10.30 am Youth Sailing:
For this session the wind started to slow up even more and was really shifty but with Jade and Dan in the Pacer and Charlie and Scott in the 420 and mason on andrews laser we sent everyone off for a drift mainly down toward Runners while Reece and I took Tristan and Harvey out for their first round the boat training session ? whats that mean well it means we allow the safety boat to drift along while the sailors go round and round the boat ? and why do we do this well its really good for boat control with tacking / gybing and bear away manouvers while chasing a moving boat just ask the boys next weekend how difficult it was ! then to finish them off they had to sail upwind back to the club so well done boys . They rest of the fleet managed to make it back slowly toward the club as at times there was no wind well except for Mason whos out haul got stuck all the way off and drifted to crab island while darren also needed a tow back to the club . So why was Charlie out there well he and Scott are competing in the Marathon Race next weekend as is Jade and Daniel providing his swollen eye has gone down , the marathon is the last official race of the 2021 season so lets hope for good winds and plenty of boats .
1.30 pm Open Racing :
With conditions staying light and it not being a championship race I sent Charlie off to set a upwind / downwind course so he set a start line down near runners with a turning buoy up at ephriam but in our channel why our channel less outgoing current and the wind was the same strength in both channels .
It was only a small fleet but everyone was still keen at the start and with the tide picking up speed on the out everyone stayed above the pin end buoy . There was some fun at the start with Greg trying to sneak in above Tom but Tom in true sporting fashion pushed him backwards so well done Tom in the end it didnt matter as Greg hit the start buoy anyway and DNF . We had two more one lappers after that with greg dnf again as he was a boat lenght early in the last race . Tom had consecutive firsts with John and Chris vying for the minor places while Nic was right there and by the third race both Matt and Trish had come to grips with the light winds and current and by race three were much closer to the finish fleet . We decided three races were enough especially with the light winds as we didnt wantr everyone caught out there when the wind dropped out later in the day.
Upcoming
28/11/2021 Club around crab island race.
19/12/2021 Xmas Party ( booking essential )
C U on the water
J Murphy