TOUKLEY SAILING CLUB NEWSPAGE
Just a short report at this stage — The weather was excellent throughout the weekend, with SW breezes around 5-10 knots. Chilly, sunny, a few clouds... perfect Brass Monkey conditions. Good racing was held in all classes. Results will be published here as soon as they are at hand, and photos taken on Monday are here.
Thanks to everyone for coming and thanks especially to all the TSC members and friends who helped run the show, a very professional effort. Results (in PDF) are here.
Danny
Saturday 8 May 2010 - Birdie Island trip
Just young Brandon Becker and I turned up for the annual end-of-season ocean trip. Brandon on his paper tiger and me on my windrush. Conditions appeared perfect, not too much wind, sunny etc. However the paper tiger was so slow, I had to stop every five minutes to wait five minutes for the young bloke, so it took an hour to run downwind to the island. Once we were there, the breeze seemed to ease off further, so instead of sailing around the island, we headed back, upwind, into a westerly of about 3 knots. I thought we were never going to get back. We tacked way out onto the ocean trying to get a bearing on the Cabbage Tree Bay beach, and then tacked back towards Lakes Beach, what a pain! Eventually I got back, at crawling speed, but with Brandon still way out to sea I sent a friendly guy in a Haines Hunter 150hp boat out to tow BB back to shore. Brandon and I crossed paths several times on our tacks back but he still got left. So slow, pointing too high I think. The whole exercise took three hours. Anyway I'm never doing this again. The only bright note was that I left my car on the beach, instead of having to walk up and down that effing hill.
Danny
Sunday 2 May 2010
The last day of racing for the season, and a handful of members turned up for the last round of the Club Championship. At 12 noon there was no wind at all, but by 1300 a westerly breeze had sprung up so we went for it.
Very pleasant sailing conditions were appreciated by the fleet for an hour and a half, but then it just stopped while a new breeze from the south-east was getting itself ready, but it didn't arrive till we had gone ashore, some of us paddling by hand or being towed behind a motorboat. See the Seabreeze® graph below, between 1.30pm and 3pm. It says it all.
However we made a good race of it, with Stan on his 16' Hobie steaming away from the smaller cats, with Aaron Robinson back a bit, and Darcy well back from him. Barry didn't live up to his earlier promise, being much further back, ahead of Danny, then Graeme on his Windy, and Craig and Tristan on the H18, delayed after going ashore to fix a wayward toggle pin.
There were some monos and juniors but I never found out their results.
Terry and Neil did stirling service on the Alison rescue launch, while Bill Cheal, bless his funny old heart, did Start/Finish boat duties as usual. Thanks all you guys - we wouldn't be racing without youse.
After the race we enjoyed a barbecue together to celebrate the successful end of another racing season. Presentation Day is two weeks away, on 16 May. Commencing at 2.00pm, bring some food and enjoy afternoon tea with us.
Danny
Sunday 25 April 2010 - Anzac Day
Up till 11.00am you wouldn't have given a hope for sailing today, but gradually the rain cleared, the clouds blew away (burned off in TV Weather lingo) and people started arriving. All of a sudden we had a beautiful sailing day! (The rule is: always wait till race time before deciding to call off the racing.)
Eight happy skippers fronted the start - 3 cats, 3 monos and 2 juniors. We just did triangles, 2 for the kids, 3 for monos and 4 for cats. This was a mistake as the cats never caught the monos in the light breezes, but we finished the whole thing in about 90 minutes.
Ari won the monos, with Grant on another Laser next and Bob's Impulse bringing up 3rd. Henry and Jordan Makin were the juniors, finishing in that order. Brandon B pulled his Paper Tiger out with a broken something-or-other after one lap, leaving Stan and Danny to fight it out for the catamarans. Danny had a bum start getting caught on the wrong side of the start boat but managed to pass Stan's Hobie 14 on the 3rd lap, only to slip behind approaching the finish. Stan tried to push Danny up off the course but Danny managed to duck behind in his Windrush to race Stan to the line, winning by 5 seconds in an amazing display of pure arse. (Yay!)
By the time the big southerly came in everything was packed away. Thanks to Terry Makin and Neil for manning the rescue boat, and Bill as usual on the Norah Homes doing the start/finish. For what seemed like a hopeless sailing day, everything went perfectly. The Makin family did a great job with Julie-Ann and Anthony pitching in everywhere.
Danny
