Hastings Summer Series Race 1 report

Mustang Sally with Libby from ' Skips ' on board, flew past the Mono's for a distant and resounding win ...congratulations to Al for taking an early lead in the series. We now know why Quickskips goes so well as it is clear who the Hugh Trehane is on board her..... that magic was vested upon Mustang on Saturday and together they showed a clean pair of Sails to the rest of the fleet...except Shuttle who was only 20 seconds behind on corrected time. Talking of which, Shuttle had an attractive additional crew member on board who added French depth and experience to this modest crew and despite massive & traumatic gear failure pressed on to just trail Frassld over the line by a couple of hundred metres. Frasslo showed good speed during the race & will be a force to be rekoned with as the season goes on... well done Shaun and crew. Mark the Carbon Fibre Man on SIN benefited enormously from Shuttles selfless advice about where to go (!) but then fell foul of his new industrial strength rudder and seemed to get lost in the mist a bit. Great to have you back on the water Mark. Sined Annonnymouse Rowing Reporter

General Meeting Feedback...Catchy- reporter at large!

Ripper meeting on Tuesday night that had everything Comedy, Safety, Qld Race Roundup, Pathos, & couple of nice drinks (apparently the Red was from Skips) Georges unintended swim, whilst amusing, bought a very important issue back to the table : safety , - a good wake up call... we did note that Tim was perturbed about the dud result for that race. ..great strategy George. Long discussion on the OMR rating changes being forced thro' by Queenslanders without consulting rest of country... poor form. The film "Deep Water" was a touching reminder of how ill directed ambition can enable contractual obligations to ruin a race & a life New boat on the blocks - SIN II - hand made by Mark in Carbon Fibre & Unobtanium .... can't wait to see it... the things one will do to attract a crew! Finally, some informal discussion on SOMR sponsors... we felt adding a 9th heat around the carpark over an olympic course with 4 crew in a Kanga bag might entice Tim to open the purse strings... afterwards they could double up as sea Anchors...

General Meeting Notice

The next General Meeting will be held at 8pm at Black Rock Yacht Club on Tuesday 16th October. The Agenda includes:

1. Viewing of the film "Deep Water"
2. Feed back from Quickskips crew on the recent Trailerable Championships in Queensland.
3. SOMR Planning Feedback
4. Commodores Corner
5. Any other business

No Multihulls in the 2012 Olmpic Games?

I came across this article in LSD. It would appear that the RYA has decided not to support a catamaran class at the 2012 games. The RYA is consitutionally bound to consult its members, but has failed to do so and is arrogantly unashamed of this when asked. A petition has been organised and has 550 names on it in 2 days. The following thread connects to the RYA submissions and readers can then chose to sign the petition if they so wish. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/CatamaranSubmission/index.html This DailySail Article sums it up quite well: Although some of you out there may not be huge fans of catamarans, this does not warrant them from being eliminated from the Olympic Games. They provide some awesome action and are fantastic to watch, and ensure that we have some variety within the sailing discipline. Is this first step by the RYA just a nudge to other associations that the Tornado should be shunned from the Olympics? Does this also provide evidence that sailing as a whole might be scrapped from the Olympics putting truth behind those rumours? Along the grapevine it was heard that Australia will not send a team to the 2012 Olympic Games in London if medals are not won in 2008 at Beijing. Support the UK guys and sign the online petition, otherwise a room full of executives will kill the dreams of so many Tornado sailors across the UK.

Skips in 3rd place and Redshift Drama

Hi Dave.... Libby here...We are having a great regatta so far..... Mon passage race and we were FIRST over the line and had about 12 mins on the next boat over the line... thought we had it in the bag, and BUGGER me we came 3rd on OMR....then around the cans for the next day.... 2 races... race one... 5th over the line... 7th on OMR... second race.. second over the line and 2nd on OMR... so 3rd place overall....Wednesday was a lay day.... nothing broken so nothing to fix! (Played lazybastards sitting on someone else's cat doing the WAGS {Wednesday AfternoonGentlemans Racing} flying around the course, top speed 20.2 knots! Thursday (Today).... we were having a SCREAMING race... ( well until we were at Peel island when we lost the 10ish knots we had on the way and came to a screaming halt... and watched the rest of the fleet catch us)...But then we were not forced to drop anchor to stop going backwards, as at least three other boats were.... We had a HUGE 20-25kn on the return leg... BIG kite up ( the boys were LOVING IT!!) Tim was almost steering one finger.... Skippy was so well balanced.... All going well until we were about a mile from the finish line... and we hear a call the race is abandoned and a man lost overboard... down comes the kite.... deciding we were not much help in finding anyone as we were so far ahead we could not see anyone except for Akimbo even close!!!! ... then we hear it isREDSHIFT who has lost a MAN OVERBOARD... about 20 VERY tense minutes andwe hear the man is picked up by a passing yacht and all is well after about 30 mins in the water... It was GEORGE, who was steering through a jibe with the crew up forward all doing jobs... the rudder had given way and George went over the back with the crew unaware until things had settled, and then they had no rudder to steer back on their course, and called Pan pan... George and crew all well...Gotta go now as we are off to the pub....Skippies in 3rd after Coco Loco and Intrigue..... Ciao Libby X