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This week saw us back at the lake at Albert Sailing Club. Light winds mean’t maximum concentration and also getting your head out of the boat. It also show demonstrated the power of photo’s. Ben raced his Optimist and had a shocking race. He had no speed all day, boat wouldn’t handle etc. Started blaming himself until we took a look at the pics after the race. Well a picture tells a thousand words. Ben had forgotten that the lake was around 2/3 full and all the other Opti’s were racing with 2/3 board down and he was racing with full board! He was slow because he was stuck in the mud for most of the race. So the lesson is if you are slow look around and check out what the competition is doing. it could be a simple thing like this.

Lachie my seven year old and I raced our Pacer and won our division and had tons of fun with the kite see above and our new Ronstan logo’s.

 

 

 

I visited Ronstan International headquarters during the week. They have some new additions to the Orbit block line up and the smaller Orbits will be fantastic for Opti’s, Pacers, Skiffs and even up to small offshore boats such as Godzilla above. Watch out for their new carbon tiller extensions and the new range of Puma sailing shoes which sales director and bowman extrordinaire Peter Dowdney says are exceptional. Marketing mananger Bryn Wellington took me through the new poster range which are definitely pretty cool with a focus on performance sailing. Check out http://www.ronstan.com

The annual keelboat teams grudge match of IRC and AMS keelboats took place over the weekend when the biggest and best yacht clubs on Port Phillip Bay put forward their best teams to win the prestigious Association Cup. This year the event turned out to be just one race (and a shortened one at that) that decided the event. The series was won by the Royal Yacht Club for the third year in a row with its team of 12 yachts from the new 55 foot grand prix Living Doll to the Noelex 25 Footloose all contributing. This year as with past years many of the boats contained familiar faces. I again helmed the Hick 31 Godzilla owned by Andrew Munro and partners with Doyle Sails Col Anderson calling the shots and sail trim. Our near sistership Wake had Peter Gale, Peter Taylor, Andrew Coutts, Dave Allan and sailmaker Mark Rimmington onboard.
North Sails Ross Lloyd was onboard Living Doll and Tony Bull from Quantum was on Shogun. Full marks to Shogun (ex Living Doll) for sailing down from Sydney for the regatta. Hopefully next year some wind so I can actually have someone on the windward side of the boat to chat to!

I walked passed a book shop at the airport and saw a sailing book staring out me. I ducked in and saw it was a book called Its not all plain sailing by Chris Hough. I knew of Chris as he was a dual world champion 505 sailor and I have an old sailing performance book with a picture of Chris and Bryan Price winning the 505 worlds in New York showing perfect sail and boat trim. The book is way more than a sailing book and Chris does his best to keep the sailing jargon to a minimum.He tells of his early sailing days in Adelaide right through to his Sydney-Hobart’s and building of some of Australia’s best ocean racing yachts and the trials and tribulations of being in the marine industry. All in all a good easy read and certainly one that anyone who has been involved in club or top level sailing would enjoy.

Dave Perry’s book Winning in One Designs I found at a book stall going out for $9.00. Unbelievable. This is a great book and is still relevant today. Dave is still a great coach and one of the few sailors that can become a great coach and on top of that can actually write so the junior as well as senior sailors understand the concepts. I gave the book to Ben my 12 year old who said “Dave Perry is great he does what I do”. He went on to say that often when I would tell Ben to ease the headsail and he did not think it was warranted he would simply take it out of the cleat and re cleat it and I would say “thats better”. Mind games! If you can source a copy of this book it has some great tactics and strategy that will make you faster.

Well the time has come for us to stop borrowing club Pacers and get our own. The Pacer is quite an amazing yacht. Not in speed or good looks but the fact as a class it continues to grow. They are the boat of choice for teams racing, dinghy match racing, club training and a great parent child boat. My son Finn (above) and I raced one to victory at Blairgowrie recently in 25 knots and had a ball.
Most recently my youngest son Lachie and I borrowed one at Albert Sailing Club and Lachie sailed his first race at age 7. As luck would have it we won that race and again had a great time with Lachie keen on improving his tacking speed after he realised that dragging your glove in the water was not a great bonus for speed!
We are on the look out for a Pacer – fibreglass or wood? Check out future posts.

Ben attended dual Olympian Sarah Blanck’s junior coaching program at Sandringham Yacht Club. Sarah took care of the kids who were intermediate to advanced sailors. The experience according to Ben was amazing. They sailed in 20-25 knots and lighter winds. Endless practice starts and races and boat tuning galore. The information Sarah and people such as Mark Tonner-Joyce imparted was pure gold. While the event was for juniors I found myself attending a couple of sessions and glanced over to see parents such as world champion sailor Nigel Abbot (who’s son Jack was attending) and Glenys Hitchen ex J-24 sailor (her daughter Melissa is a top Opti sailor) also listening in attentively. This training from Sarah was definitely a cut above anything I had seen and the kids were given pics and video’s of their performances. A really professional three days. Did the kids like it? Well I can only speak for Ben when after a hard day on the water he came home and started to watch his Optisailors DVD and was taking notes to improve his boatspeed for the next day! You have to applaud any coach who can motivate and inspire 12 year olds!

The Fireball was advertised as being in fair condition on a great trailer. I had seen the Yachts and Yachting special called Pimp My Boat where they totally transformed an old Fireball. Also my father and number of hero sailors of mine growing up sailed Fireballs and I always thought they had a great look. So there it was. Hardly any paint left on the deck, no pole, no harness and gear from circa 1975. However it did have a Bruce Keir builders badge and a Martini shute. It grabbed my attention almost. First I walked as it looked like too much work. But a week later it was in my garage. All the fittings are off and the project is underway. Funny thing, when I picked up the boat and was about to drive away the old owner ran out and gave me a full length cover. Why hadn’t he covered the boat with it for the last ten years! Anyway back to sanding.

Daveys Bay Yacht Club backed up their Lidgett Cup regatta with a hosting of the Victorian International Optimist Association Championships. A few years ago a fleet of 15-20 boats would have been a good fleet. However in 2009 63 Optimists took the water with entrants from NSW and Qld making the trip to Victoria. 35 boats were in the Green Fleet and 28 in the Open fleet. Ben Hartnett sailed in the Open division having a steep learning curve but finishing 4th in one heat. Finn Hartnett teamed up with Charlotte Bond in the Green Fleet and they sailed there first state titles and had a ball.
Conditions were medium to light with choppy conditions on day one and flatter seas for day 2. James Oliver backed up his Lidgett Cup win with a first overall in the Open division followed by Lloyd Collings with Melissa Hitchen-Haw in third. Full results are at

http://www.daveysbay.org.au/