Message from the Dinghy Captain

Hi all Sailors, Mums & Dads, Volunteers and Coaches,

I trust that everyone is well and enjoying the time back out on the water.  It has been a month now since the last dinghy newsletter and two weeks since we had the last heats of the winter series.

To kick things off, I have some very important announcements.  The club will be offering breakfast and coffee from 0830 tomorrow, so pop on down early, bring the whole family, have a ‘Heart Starter’ coffee and a bite to eat before rigging up tomorrow.  The other item that is important, is that the club is having the whole surface of the Hard-Stand area Re-Surfaced  What this means to us, is that we won’t have access to Gate 2 and the hardstand as we normally do.  Please use the carpark area adjacent to the Hook Café Via the main gate, and use the available space in the carpark adjacent to the Dolphin View room, down near the marina.  All works should be completed before the next heats, so we will have to work around the activities taking place on Sunday.  It is a pain, but we can work around this.  For launching we can still use the beach access ramp for the dinghies and launch at the hook.  I will be there early for brekky, so if you have any queries we can sort then.  Orizaba in in the water already (Thanks Ross Davidson and Ally Boocock)

Again, we had a great turnout for the last heat/s on the 19th July (Unfortunately we could only get one heat in due to the lack of wind).  We had 24 dinghies sail on the day, which is fantastic to see.  I had a number of people talk to me in the following week, who were watching us racing from sure, and they all said to it was a great spectacle to watch from shore.  Although we are racing for pennants and trophies, there was plenty of laughs out on the race course on the day.  It appeared that at least on dinghy was provided with a little push from a support crew, and at least one dinghy skipper decided he needed to cool off and have a swim ?..

I have to remind everyone that we need to endeavour to keep up the social distancing where appropriate, wash hands regularly and use hand sanitiser.  We have worked hard to have no community transmitted Covid-19 for 107 days in WA.

We have at least one of our junior Laser sailors competing at Westsail, and it would be great to get a few more attending.  I can’t stress enough, that events like these are invaluable in developing skills and experience.  It doesn’t matter how you see yourself as a sailor, as you always pick up so much at these events.  Westsail is on 26th – 29th September at Hillarys Yacht Club.  Here is a link with information  https://www.sailingyouth.org.au/statechamps/western-australia-/   Please let me know if you plan to go, as you may be able to share the experience with other MOFSC sailors.

It has come to my attention that we have inadvertently scheduled heats 9 & 10 on the 6th Sept, which is Fathers Day.  I am thinking that most Dads would like to spend the morning lazing around with breakfast in bed, rather than sailing.  With this in mind I would like to re-schedule heats 9 & 10 to the 30th August.  I will send out a change to sailing instructions, so look out on the MOFSC web site and the Breakwater newsletter.  The other item of interest, is that I would think it appropriate, and if an opportunity arises, we could slot in a re-sail for Heat 4 which we missed out on, on the 19th July.  Again a quick change to the sailing instructions will be in order.

Again,  I would like to say a big thank you to Halls Head Bendigo Bank for sponsoring the Juniors, the Pacer Cup and the Winter Series. It is very pleasing to have a sponsor like Bendigo Bank come on board and sponsor out juniors and dinghy group.  I have left the attached documents to this newsletter for your reference.  All these documents are also available under the Dinghy section for the MOFSC website.  If you have not done so already, could you please complete a registration form and send it to Corinne at the main office, with your sailing fees. The easiest way is to call Corinne and pay by card over the phone and scan / email your completed registration form and send through to reception@mofsc.com.au .  Alternatively, you can pay over the bar.  Give them your name and what the payment is for, i.e. “Dinghy Winter Series”.  Pop your registration into the stainless steel box in front of the office.

Make sure you have registered and paid your sailing fees

We are looking for a few people to assist on the start boat ‘Mistral’.  This is to help with flags, calling times, and scribing.  It is a great way to get involved with the added bonus of being in the thick of the fleet and gaining knowledge of how it is all done from a race management point of view.  I would like to say a big thank you to Warren Blay who put his hand up to be RO (Race Officer) for the last race day and on Sunday the 2nd August.  At the moment we are at risk of not being able to sail, because all our ‘Usual Suspects’ who R/O for us are either away enjoying the sunshine northwards, or for personal reasons not able to R/O.  We have one or two people who have put their hand up to learn this process (Thank you, you know who you are), but if you would like to be in the thick of the racing, and enjoy a morning or afternoon on the water, please let me know.

Looking forward a few months, we are planning to have a presentation afternoon at the club to complete the presentations for the shortened 2019-2020 Summer season and the coming 2020 Winter season.  It will be in the afternoon of the last race day, which is the 20th September, so put the day in your diary and watch this space for details.  I have booked to Dolphin View room, and will work with our functions manager to come up with an array of food and drink.  It would be great to see all mums, dads, competitors, volunteers there for the 2020 presentations “The Year That Was”!

Last but not least, a big thank you to Kim Wade for taking on the job of doing the results.  She did a fantastic job last week, and managed to place all four Aeros 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th over the line…   ?

MOFSC 2020 Dinghy Winter Race Amendment – 1 20200808

MOFSC 2020 Winter Series Pacer Cup Supplementary SI’s

ENTRY Form Winter Series 2020 MOFSC

Kind Regards

Mike Gaebler
Rear Commodore Dinghy
0407 195 026