I visited the West Coast for the week

This time it was off to Perth and the DeckHardware van stayed home. The nice bit was the hire car company ‘upgrading’ me from the compact booked to a newer Commodore SV6. Robyn has an older model, so it wasn’t an issue to drive. What was nice though, was the newer features now on offer. Things like the lane changing warnings on the side mirrors, the intermittent wiper controls but more so was the number of lights when driving at night. Day one, drive one was from the airport down to Bunbury. Pleasant on the new freeway south and I was out of Perth before the afternoon peak too.

Bunbury is a few hours drive south and I was able to catch up with a few stockists and show off some of the new DeckHardware products. As is the case a lot of times, they see the updates on products on our website and in emails but it’s not until they touch and feel that they understand what the product is all about.  They also asked me to stay a little longer but the following day I had to be at Royal Perth Yacht Club at 0900 so it wasn’t an option. I’ve often said how great the country sailors are and this was no exception even though I only see them probably once a year.

Saturday morning was an early start at RPYC, this time I was attending my third Australian Sailing Club Conference. Again there was an excellent turn up including some who had travelled from Albany and Walpole down on the south coast. These talks have been an excellent information package and each time I go away with something new about the management of our sport. Sydney’s is in a few weeks’ time, so again that’ll be interesting to see who’s there. On Sunday, I spent the day catching up with a few mates including Justin Kelleher who introduced me to the Lost at See Blind Sailing team as they were about to head off to the USA for their championships. JK as a sighted crew can’t touch anything on the boat, instead relaying what’s happening both on the boat and to the all-female crew. They gave me the honour of drawing their fund raising raffle and I hope that the winners were all happy.

The next three and a half days were spent between Mandurah down south and Mindarie in the north seeing as many stockists as possible showing off some of the new product range. One of the bigger issues that I had driving around, is that I had to remember where I was. Having been to Southern Queensland and Victoria in the last month or so, a focus on who was next was required. Yes, I do use the GPS but only now and then for just a few off the beaten track. WA like the rest of the country is in a building stage and new roads are opened and older closed especially around the airport which threw me out a bit.

On Wednesday night I held a talk at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club discussing a few of the maintenance topics that some have with their boats. A good crowd were receptive and we discussed all things on boats and sailing. It was also great to catch up and have dinner with Colin Harrison the Australian Gold medal winning Sonar skipper in Rio. Unfortunately Sailing is no longer a Paralympic sport so we don’t get to see these guys much any more. The Sonar team coach Grant Alderson also joined us and we discussed ‘worldly issues’ over a meal.

As always, these interstate trip can’t be done without the support of a few people and this time once again, Paul, Sarah, Murray and Grant helped out. Thanks as always especially to my hosts.