Sabot sailors,
The fourth heat of the 2006 VSSA Winter Series was sailed at APYC on July 29th. A relatively good breeze of 5 – 15 knots made for good close racing in the large fleet. Tom Jenkins led for the majority of the race displaying excellent boat speed whilst the pressure was up. Relentless as ever, and in (recently typical) declining pressure, Tim Hannah gradually moved through the fleet to win narrowly from Stephen Collings and Tom. With Stephen not entered in the VSSA Winter Series, this moved Tom up to second. Then followed Cam Parsons, George Davies and Andrew Gillies who just edged out Jeremy O’Connell and John Linacre on the line.
Some other notable performances were Will Llewelyn in 8th place, Georgina Oakley in 11th, Oliver Kalpokas who was often up in the top group in 15th and Gus Ekberg for bringing the Black Pearl home for its first official finish in the VSSA series.
24 of the 25 starters finished the race with not all that much separating the fleet. A great result - full results are on the website now.
Reminder to all coach groups – (1) please get your second instalment fees to Ian Gillies asap, and (2) please get your self assessment forms to your coach asap.
We have a weekend off from the lake this weekend – well at least formally from our Winter Series! For those who wish to race on Saturday pm there will be a club race as usual, and for those who want to face the bay, Mordialloc SC Winter Series starts on Sunday pm.
Note to Black Rock YC sailors – a big winter renovation project has started on the club Sabots so they are in “as-new” condition by the start of the new training season. We are looking for Sabot sailors to donate older but usable Sabot sails to the club to assist this process and keep the cost down. So, for those of you who have wardrobes full of older sabot sails you are no longer using, and you are wondering what you are going to do with them, please consider donating them to a good cause. If you are able to help, please contact Mark Taylor on 0417-832000. Your donation will be acknowledged by the club in the usual way.
With the 2006/7 Sabot Nationals coming up at Sandringham YC this Christmas, we are on the hunt for race sponsors. At between $500 and $1000 per race there is a big package of goodies we can throw at potential sponsors – if you know of someone who may be a possible sponsor please contact Mark Taylor on 0417-832000.
A reminder to parents who have not yet volunteered to assist at the 2006/7 Nationals , we will be allocating the following tasks over the week – a stint in the measuring shed, daily shore assist, daily regatta office, daily on-water assist, daily spectator vessel duty etc. Please nominate now to tasks you would prefer.
Finally, if anyone has access to a suitable spectator vessel over the period 29 December to 5 January we would like to talk to you – mooring can usually be arranged at Sandringham at that time of year, and we want to generate a good sized spectator fleet to offer interstate parents the opportunity to watch close up. If you think you can help in this area please contact Richard Finney on 0414 712580 or 9598-2636.
That’s your lot for now,
Yours in sailing
The Pres’
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