ver the recent March Labour Day long weekend, BYC hosted the 2010 Pacer State Titles and four heats of the Javelin State Titles. It was a great success with 40 Pacers entered which the Pacer President advised was the largest fleet seen since the late 1980‟s. Your club has a very proud Pacer history. Club members have won over half of both the National and State titles held since 1971. Successful sailors still involved in the club are our Vice Commodore, Peter Sharp, who tops the list with 9 National and 10 State titles; Russell Kemp, with 4 Nationals and 4 States, his son Peter with 1 National title as crew to his father and 2 State titles as helmsman; Jim French (we have to share him with Albert Park), 3 Nationals and 1 State, and Les Sharp, 1 National and 1 State. Seven Beaumaris Pacers entered the event. Five of these were competing in their first series and three were crewed by new sailors with two or less seasons of sailing experience – a wonderful effort by Xafina Dendrinos, Kyla Woods, Tim Rance, Cam Bromley, Luke Cromie, Warrick Sheppard, Greg Dallas, David Merenstein and Daniel Neistat. The best Beaumaris result was a win in the Junior (helm), Senior (crew) class by Olivia and Dianne Angus. Another happy success was Peter Lesic and Greg Dallas winning the new jib donated by South Eastern Sails. Our eighth Beaumaris entry was Paul and Judy Hardie sailing the new Pacer Pursuit as a demonstration class. Jim French has built the Pursuit to expand the performance of the Pacer to cater for the stronger and fitter of our juniors at a reasonable price. With a larger sail area, a trapeze and an asymmetric spinnaker the increased performance is there and we wish Jim success with the project. Six Javelins sailed their heats on the Sunday. The speed and skill with which the best crews handle these powerful boats through the tacks, gybes and spinnaker handling of racing is awesome, especially when performed in wind speeds of over 20 knots. For many of the stronger and fitter monohull sailors the Javelin is the next step after the Pacer. Our successful running of this regatta was due to a wonderful response from all our volunteers. Thankfully not all went quite as far as our Duty Officer, Bruce Fraser, who almost knocked himself out on the winch on Sunday afternoon, but then returned, bandaged and ready for duty on the Monday morning. Several of the volunteers are not current members; Russell Kemp returned to skipper Narina as the Javelin course boat, Greg Sinclair from Royal Geelong Yacht Club performed the role of Principal Race Officer in Rod McCubbin‟s absence and Alex St John returned as Race Officer. Hampton Sailing Club provided two fully crewed rescue boats to assist with the running of the event. When asked, we find that exmembers return very willingly to help out; such
are their happy memories of their time at the club. The canteen was magnificent! The famous Beaumaris rolls complemented by homemade Florentines and “Ricketty Ann” cookies give a wonderfully comfortable family atmosphere to our club. The welcome dinner on the Saturday evening was a good success despite the weather, thanks to the salads donated by Beaumaris members and the meat packs supplied by Aspendale Quality Meats (owned by Aaron Hirst who sails Javelins at Chelsea).
2 Commodores Report 3 Sailing Report 4 Javelins, Puffing Billy
Our food, our happy, welcoming, competent volunteers, our large clubrooms and our boating facilities create an excellent venue for our visitors as was proven by the 40 Pacers which attended with the complete absence of any complaints.
5 Editorial, recollections
We run events like this for two reasons; it helps the club financially, but more importantly it exposes our sailors to all the benefits of top-class racing. Sailing in large fleets with all the congestion at the start-line and the marks, plus the ability to observe the best and compete with others, whether at the front or the back of the fleet, certainly sharpens the boat-handling skills and builds self confidence.
8 Canal Cruising
The Christmas social function on the last sailing day before the break was a great success with about 80 people attending. It started with Santa Claus‟s arrival on the rescue boat to the wideeyed amazement of the children and the delight of the mothers and spectators. Santa, (Peter Lesic), ably assisted by the not very elf-like Mike Kenyon, distributed presents upstairs with the children‟s reactions varying from fear to awe -struck delight. The meal was a barbecue with lovely salads donated by the members and the piece-de-resistance was real French crepes made and served by Natalie Ruether, Ann Aubree and their families. A great family oriented Christmas celebration with our sailing friends. On the maintenance and major-works side of things, the Sharp family completed the upgrade to the men‟s change rooms where the toilets area has been largely refurbished with a new ceiling, new handbasin and walls tiled in club colours. Paul Hardie and Thomas Ruether spent much time and effort maintaining the training fleet, while Phillip Connard and myself rebuilt the Minnow shed ably assisted by Thomas Ruether and Bruce Fraser. Resplendent in club colours, the Minnow Shed now outshines the neighbouring boat shed which recently sold for around $180,000. We‟re approaching the end of a season in which we‟ve lost quite a few days to bad weather, but the winter is long so come and enjoy the last few sailing days in the atmosphere of our wonderful club. Ian McHugh Commodore.
from Stephen Whiteside
6 Report on 2010 States regatta
9 Training report, Cadets and Minnows
10 Report on the 09-10 Javelin Nationals
12 Musings from the tower
Stick these in the diary!
April 11 Championship Race 5 Roger Fagan Trophy
April 18 Closing regatta End of season function after sailing - all welcome!
TBA BYC AGM and Presentation Function - Come along and catch up over the winter! Details released soon.