Division One Ramblings

Sunday October 3rd marked the opening of the 76th Summer Sailing season at the club and the day’s proceedings had it all. From a full complement of VIP’s, members and guests present, the entries for the afternoons racing put on spectacular show that included smart matching crew outfits, themed costumes, music, and even fully choreographed dance numbers! Congratulations to Matt Rose and his team on King Canute who took out best dressed boat for the day, the whole experience was something to behold!

Something for our yachties to be elated about this season is the return of our beloved Sharon Skinner, who we welcome back to the club as our Sailing Administrator. Sharon returns following a few years down the creek with another club and brings back her many years of knowledge and experience in the role, and at SoPYC so we are delighted to see her smiling face in the on water group office once again. Welcome home Sharon!

The Wednesday keelboat sailing competition continues to attract strong fleets of competitive boats and crews which is great to see! A few weeks of wild and stormy conditions at the front of the season saw the cancellations of a few races to the relief for some and frustration for others however, all acknowledging the care of our Race Officers in making these tough decisions in our sailors’ best interests.

The current standing for the Midweek and Saturday competitions can be found on the club website.

Saturday Keelboat racing has seen a mix of conditions and a fluctuating number of boats. Many invitation races held by our fellow River clubs at the start of the season have been well attended by boats from SoPYC which is great although did impact fleet numbers at the club. The ongoing challenge of finding willing and able crew has seen some boats in our fleets struggle to get out of the pen on the weekends. A big thank you to the efforts of Sharon as well as those sailors and members who have taken on the mission to assist boats and skippers in finding new and experienced sailors to join their crews!

In addition to our regular weekly racing, the club has been able successful in compiling entries for the Swan River Racing state and interclub competitions. Being part of the team that competed in the Women’s Keelboat State Championship last year off Fremantle was a fantastic experience with our team enjoying a 1st in one race and 5th position overall. I encourage all yachties to keep an eye out for these competitions and complete and EOI on the website if you would like to get involved in future events

The Yimbala Eun Na Mara competition was a hugely

successful event with Power boaties turned Yachties and Yachties turned time trailers! There was some very healthy competitive spirit shown by the usual suspects from both sections. Massive congratulations to Matt Rose and Jason Claricoates Likewise, our Sailors taking part in the evening time trial should be some fun as well. Fingers crossed we see some new ‘cross craft’ crewing combinations as a flow on from this event!

The annual Billy run was raced in conjunction with East Fremantle early March and SoPYC had 8 boats in the event which was an excellent showing. Congratulations to all those who took part and the winners! For those who missed the fun, another Billie run next be happening next season so watch this space. Victoria, Sailing Captain.

It has been a while, but our Club now has a Promotions manager again (Welcome Premo), so some news about Division One.

I have the pleasure of sitting on Sailing Committee each month, and although mostly administrative stuff, we had our Head Coach, Denis Jones at an earlier meeting, where he outlined several of his initiatives for training new sailors. One of these was to involve the various Divisions to experience sailing on a BW8, and meet many of the new trainees, and hopefully, getting some of them involved sailing on our yachts. Division One were invited to the first of these sessions, and five or six of us had a fun afternoon flipping and flopping our Clubs’ BW8’s, practicing start techniques, and afterwards, enjoying fellowship with a BBQ and the necessary liquid refreshment. Apparently Denis will expand this first initiative to all Divisions, and possibly we will get another chance to participate.

Late December saw many of us down at Rockingham, enjoying the sparkling waters of Cockburn Sound for five days of Regatta sailing. Wind conditions varied from nothing to steady afternoon breezes, but the heatwave was a killer ! TCYC as usual did a great job of organisation, our own Christina Heydon policed every start, and was rewarded with zero protests. Sagacious IV was prominent, along with many SoPYC Div 2 and Div 3 yachts. Unfortunately, Eun Na Mara did not find enough crew to make the effort.

Our WAGS continues to grow in popularity, with sometimes 12 or13 yachts contesting. Having lost ‘Sagacious IV’ to FSC, and ‘Numbers Game’ to HYC, Chris Higham has brought ‘Argo’ up river to SoPYC. David Atkinson, ex ‘Igawa’ has joined the action with the renamed ‘Crush’ from FSC now called ‘Tapestry’. Sadly, ‘Arajilla’ and ‘Minds Eye’ have also departed. However, it was great to see ‘Morpheus’ out sailing last Wednesday, and who knows, maybe now that John Midolo’s Commodore duties are waning, we may encourage ‘A’Bientot’ to come and play with us ??

Our numbers on Saturdays continue to decline: I wonder why ? Crew numbers seem to be the major handicap and I guess many owners simply cannot be bothered with the constant problem of trying to muster enough muscle power to successfully race. One of our new members at SoPYC has independently taken on the job of finding crew for all fleets, and we must encourage Alessandra to keep up this good work: any constructive suggestions will be gratefully received, and also to this end, a meeting group has formed to take further initiatives.

Towards the end of February, finally the Eun Na Mara-Yimbala race has been reconstituted. Well done to

Bernie Kaaks for getting this one off the ground after many unsuccessful attempts over the past years.

We welcome Sharon Skinner back as Sailing Administrator, and have farewelled Scott Nunn to Sharon’s old position at RFBYC. Now that’s a good example of sharing between kindred Clubs, isn’t it?

By the time this ‘Soundings’ is received, we will have completed most of the Summer racing season 2022; there’s not too many more races to go before “Frostbites” Sail Fast and Bonnie Ralph Newton.