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Hi Everyone, The RCL Nationals/Victorian Championships have come and gone.

Congratulations to our new champions:

1st Scott Fleming – Waterways, Victoria

2nd Graham Brown - Sydney, NSW

3rd Dave Pruden – WA

4th Paul Derwent – Sydney, NSW

Quite honestly the sailing conditions weren’t great. From the result sheet you will be able to tell that I don’t know much about wind direction. For this reason I asked my better half, Peter (RCL82), for the purpose of this newsletter, to describe the wind conditions for the weekend. His reply says it all “it was blowing from north, south, east and west”!!!!

Having said that, listening to some of the comments made by a number of the sailors over the weekend, I have to say that I have NEVER been to a regatta (and I have been to hundreds over the years) where every sailor doesn’t think he can set a better course than the race officer!!!

Being a race officer and an organizer of such an event is not an enviable task and we have to applaud the group of people who voluntarily gave up their time to come and assist us over the weekend, a number of whom were from the Micro Magic Class. David Thomas (AYRA), Andrew Reid (President, VRYA), Mike Pender (Race Officer) Zandra Thomas, Frank Katers, Tony Smith, Geoff Dawson, Bill Hutchison, Margaret Lee, Brian Long and Jill Brown.

On arrival at the venue on the Saturday morning a fair bit of time was spent by the organizers trying to decide where the best “spot” would be to run this National event. Not an easy decision with the little bit of wind we had at that early hour of the morning already blowing all over the place. Anyway the southern bank was decided upon, which is the usual launching spot for the local sailors. The actual “launching” spot, by the way, is a couple of rocks nestled in between grass, reeds, weeds and a fair bit of mud!

Some of the locals had been coerced into bringing some kind of refreshment for the weekend. I know who you are; you know who you are and my grateful thanks to all of you for what you brought. My apologies Jayne, but although the cake you baked was absolutely delicious, your better half (RCL38) has put your name down already to mow the lawn before the next event!! I will put my name down again for tree trimming, so we are all set to go for our next regatta!

My family ( RCL82 and RCL95) were not too happy that I was doing a bit of gardening around the place, they were convinced that the “Greens” were going to come and arrest me and throw me in gaol!!

The best thing about an event like this is that it gives us the opportunity to catch up with old friends and to meet new ones. We were very fortunate to have eight sailors from interstate as the Victorian RCL’s didn’t really “come to the party”.

We almost had more “helpers” than Victorian RCL sailors. Simon threatened that if I said anything about him sailing only on the Saturday that it would be “open season” and I could expect a ….. maybe not so nice … email back from him!!

Cam can be excused for not sailing. He came to support us even though he had just walked 100km in the Oxfam Charity Walk over a period of 24 hours.

The newest member of our fleet, Domenic and his wife Vicki were also there to show their support as was, I believe, Derek Warne, although I never saw him myself….. I was too busy doing 360’s up at the windward mark.

During our normal Sunday afternoon sailing at Waterways I usually keep my ears open for any “chirps” that I hear from the sailors. These chirps are noted down and passed on in the form of a general email that I send out after Sunday sailing. I heard a lot over the weekend but I couldn’t possibly remark on them all. There was one “chirp” however that seemed to stand out from all the rest. Rodney Popham (RCL42) from WA was told by one of the umpires to do a 360 for some infringement of the rules. Next minute I heard the umpire telling Rodney to do another 360 as he had done his penalty in front of some other boats which had interfered with their sailing. Rodney’s reply to this was “but when I started to do the penalty there were no other boats there”!!! I thought this chirp deserved a place in this newsletter!!

Our “no nonsense” bridge officer was on form yesterday as well. Yours truly complained to him about the use of binoculars by one of the umpires. A while later the sailors were called to a meeting whereby Mike said there had been “grumbles” about the use of binoculars and that the binoculars were there to stay for the duration of the regatta ( not quote and unquote but you get the general idea). I don’t really know why I wasn’t happy about the use of binoculars as I should be so lucky as to be able to go around the windward mark with a whole lot of other boats!!! So, round one to Mike, but I have to say, for the benefit of the other sailors who also had doubts about this, I think we should have some clarification on this issue before our next major regatta. Our understanding of this particular rule is that the umpires should be able to see what we can see. Maybe there is some International rule that can be passed on to us regarding this (if David Thomas at AYRA could be so kind as to look into this and give us a report back we would be most grateful).

So, no matter what problems we might have with wind or boats, at the end of the day, while we would obviously enjoy ideal sailing conditions, it is all about the camaraderie of a bunch of people who get together to share a common interest and just have a load of fun.

Congratulations again to the winners and I think our “first lady”, Jayne, deserves a mention for sailing really well and beating her father in law by two points!!

Congratulations to Geoff Dawson as well who recently turned the grand old age of 80.

 And last but not least, the stirrer of the day award goes to RCL93, Steve, who as someone said, has “certainly made his mark”!!! There were too many close seconds for this award – they shall remain nameless – until the next time!

Regards Janet RCL84