Power point

September 18, 2012 Leave a comment

Yesterday morning I recieved a phone call from the Cruising Division at Middle Harbour Yacht Club, their guest speaker for last nights meeting had dropped out. Could I fill in and do a talk?

Sure.

Melissa spent most of the morning putting together a modified version of the Power Point presentation that she and Ben did for the Sydney International Boat show a couple of weeks ago [well it seems like that].

The cruising division at the club is quite active and they usually have around 40 members turn up, cook a BBQ and then have their meeting followed by a guest, in this case me. As the clubs principal race officer, I know a few of them , but it was great to meet up with some of the rest of the division. They even have one fellow who keeps up to track with any new developments in the news, magazines or on the net. In this case he mentioned the rash of European built boats coming in with sub standard skin fittings. well, did I come on a good night!

The presentation started on Liros ropes, the care, upkeep, choices and a host of other issues when owning a yacht. I had a few rope whip samples which were passed around. Some of those there still had wire halyards! I then opened up the bin I had of Forespar including a few of the Marelon skin fittings. This raised an eye with many there as it was surprising how many didn’t look after or regularly maintain their seacocks and valves, I think a few may when they next go aboard.

I spoke for over 1/2hr and then with questions and there were plenty, I was talking for over an hour, followed by those who came up afterwards. I think I managed to open a few eyes with the DeckHardware product range, many had picked up one of our discs at the show but were still to have a look. After last night a few will.

Come this Saturday at the club, I’m sure there will be a few asking some more questions. Hopefully I can help them out.

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First race season 2012/13 at MHYC

September 10, 2012 Leave a comment

Last Saturday was the first pointscore race of the season, with a good rollup in all divisions including the new #4 Division of fortnightly competitors. The breeze was out of the South West, however given the shifty nature of the breeze, a Westerly course was set. This gave the competitors a chance to do triangles as well as windward returns with a bit of Middle Head mystique thrown in.

 

With only one OCS on the day, all fleets were surprisingly well behaved on the startline. There was one incident however, Ken Krone aboard Kestral had a MOB in the last boatlength prior to his start. I was looking down the line and missed it, all I saw was his mainsheet being eased to slow the boat down. Once notified by the start team, I radioed Tender3 on the pin for them to come and assist. Ken arrived shortly after and picked him up and then retiring from the race. I look forward to seeing his report on the incident.

The start team then moved to watch the bottom mark for a few laps then moved on to be in position at Balmoral for the finish, this also gave Melissa the opportunity to take photos from a different direction.

The final issue on the day for the start team was the rescue of a distressed sailboarder. We had picked up all of the marks and were returning to MHYC when we saw a hand waving at us. The sailboarder had come out of Balmoral and was over come by exhaustion and the cold. We brought him onboard Hugh S George and took him in to the inner line of moorings at Balmoral for a short paddle ashore.

 

Photos taken by Melissa can be seen on both the DeckHardware and MHYC Facebook pages.

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Another interstate trip

July 9, 2012 Leave a comment

Last week I made a late trip down to Melbourne, I had hoped to spend the week seeing a majority of customers that I don’t see on my regular trips. Unfortunately due to the ill health of Robyn I could only get away for a couple of days. So instead of driving down Sunday, I left late thursday afternoon and could only spend Friday seeing a few people.

 

Saturday was spent attending a Yachting Australia Racing Rules and race officers meeting at Royal Brighton Yacht Club, before the return 10 hour drive home on Sunday. Why drive? Too often I’m asked do you have this to show me, I haven’t seen that before. having a van full of products enables me to show a range of the nearly 10,000 items in our price list.

 

 

I had the chance to visit the Melbourne Wooden Boat Centre at Docklands. This is a Co-operative of owner builders building a nd repairing a quite differing range of craft. Luke Evans is one of those building his first little sailing dinghy, a 16’er as seen in the front right of the photo. Luke is after a classic style in his finish and Liros do a range of ropes that will hopefully fit his final look. I was able to show him a variety of the DeckHardware range, including the Allen fittings and PROtect Tape. Some of the other boats ranged from a Minnow up to a Dragon class yacht, there were rowing sculls and Dragon paddling canoes, quite a range.

 

Saturday at Brighton was a first also. As my clubs Principal race officer, I try to keep up to date on what’s going on, especially with the new ISAF rules coming in to effect in January. Each state had a nominated person to vote but there were several of us sitting in and able to to comment where neccessary. It will be interesting to see the new rules of Sailing come in to effect as I had not been involved before.

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Saturday on Sydney Harbour

June 12, 2012 Leave a comment

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This weekend was a long weekend in Sydney so there was no racing at Middle Harbour. After an early start at Woollahra Sailing Club where the East Coast Championships were being held for the 420s and Optimists, it was back to MHYC.

At Woollahra, I was able to have a good look at some of the 420s and catch up with some of the coaches and parents.

Later Steve Tucker, my assistant RO at MHYC, Phil Clinton, Vice Commodore and the chair of the sailing committee and I went out for a run around the harbour. The object was to GPS mark all the NSW Yachting Association marks as well as some of the other common marks such as the Shark, Clarke Islands and Fort Denison we use. Steve was going to update all the course lengths as they haven’t been done for some time, it’ll also give us an accurate database for any other courses we may set around the fixed marks.

Some of those we pinged were the posts at the islands, the one shown is on the Southeast corner of Clarke Island. Steve said that last season he’d run aground on the rock to which to post is fitted in a 30’er. Being in the MHYC startboat Hugh George [36′ and twin turbo diesel] and giving Phil Clinton driving lessons, we were able to come right alongside and have a good look down…mmmnn that one? The three of us were all able to have a good look for future races! Whether or not that’s inside knowledge or not…put it down to research.

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First full week back to ‘normal’

June 4, 2012 2 Comments

After the few weeks leading up to Sanctuary Cove 2012 and the associated planning, setting up and returning to Sydney, today see’s the first week of a near normal week. After spending yesterday setting up the stands again in the warehouse as a prelude to th Sydney International Boat Show where DeckHardware will have a larger and improved stand on Sydney 2011.

Sanctuary Cove was an improvement on last years show with many if not most of the visitors to our stand knowing what they were looking for. As in every year, Man Ship Marine’s range of hatches and ports was the most requested product, it was surprising to see a larger number than usual of owner builders requesting information. They ranged from those who had plans, one fellow was on to his second hull in his catamaran build to a fellow from Victoria who had just turned over his Van DeStadt to start on the interior and deck. Now with an increasing range of products, DeckHardware can supply product information across a range of enquiries, from the Forespar Marelon plumbing products to the TBS non skid for their decks.

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Saturday was the first day back on the Middle Harbour startboat in some time. This was race 5 of the Winter series and I had missed the last race of the summer pointscore whilst Melissa and I attended a YANSW course. The photo shows Division 2 with 10 seconds to go, not showing is the one boat who was OCS, in Winter I try to lay a line that makes the fleet start down the line, but they still start on the boat and give away too many boatlengths. And the rain in the distance over South Head? Yes, we got wet!

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It’s been a big couple of weeks and I haven’t been anywhere.

May 8, 2012 Leave a comment

With the Sanctuary Cove Boatshow coming up in a couple of weeks time, I haven’t had a chance to get out on the road. Many of my friends and some of our DeckHardware customers know that I spend quite a bit of time on the road visiting the various chandleries, boatbuilders and riggers around Australia, however there’s been plenty to do with the show season upon us.

Last week I had the chance to go out to test a few of the PeterGs boat cleaning products on an old Laser. The boat had been in storage for some time before being picked up by a couple of friends and occasional DeckHardware helpers James Gough and Liz Gazzard. Goughy and I had a range of the PeterGs to trial cleaning up the boat.

We tried the Marine Wash, an Alcoline product on one side and on the other the KleenAHull and Acidic product to compare the outcome. Whilst we didn’t expect too much from the Marine Wash on the bottom, we had excellent results from the KleenAHull as shown by the photo. You can see the difference from the square we masked off. With a final cleanup of the Port side, Goughy and Liz have a new looking boat, bar the tape mark down the centre line!

Over the weekend, rather than being out on the startboat no the seasons over, I’ve been building new stands for the boatshows. Man Ship Marine and Houdini both have new products and therefore new stands for this year. We’ve also re-arranged many of the other stands to show off differing lines from each manufacturer, Forespar for example have their new range of Tef45 products for anti corrosion use. For those in Australia, you’ll just have to come along and have a look, we’ll be at both Sanctuary Cove and the Sydney boatshows. Everyone else will have to keep an eye on the DeckHardware Facebook page where Melissa will be keeping you updated.

 

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2012 World Access Dinghy Championships

April 7, 2012 Leave a comment

ImageThis week sees me back at my home club Middle Harbour Yacht Club. After 3 weeks away interstate in 5 it’s nice to come back to familiar surroundings.

Wth over 85 boats and over 100 competitors across multiple divisions, it has been quite an effort by our club Commodore Julie Hodder and a huge team of volunteers in organising this event.

As the club PRO, I’m stepping aside as Mark Pryke has been brought in to oversee the on water running of the event. It will be interesting working alongside him, as though we have known each other for many decades, this will be the first time I’ve been on the water with him, as against being on the water competing against him. Mark is known these days as an International Race Official, however, I spent many years sailing against him in the Adams10s.

The fleet this week includes the Access, Libertys and the Paralympic sailing class, the Skud18 as shown in the photo. In this case it’s Dan and Liesels boat which we sponsor through our support of the Australian Sailing Team. It’ll also be a good opportunity to get some on water footage too.

Hopefully I may get the chance to jump aboard on of the competing boats, just to get a feel of what they are like. I’ve never sailed a dinghy that can’t capsize, should be interesting.

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Western Australia last week

March 5, 2012 1 Comment

  I flew in to Perth Western Australia last Sunday morning and after a bit of getting organised, drove up to Geraldton some 5 hours north of Perth. Gero as it is known to the locals is home to a large cray fishing fleet, hence my trip up there to see those in the marine industry. Unfortunately there are now heavy restrictions on them via quotas and the fleet is reducing rapidly. Monday was spent seeing all the chandleries and retailers before driving back to Perth.

Tuesday saw a shorter drive north up to Yanchep and the Two Rocks Marina where Alan Bond started his Americas Cup campaign in the early 1970s before working my way south in the northern suburbs of Perth itself. All of the streets in the area are named after the various Americas Cup contenders.

Wednesday was spent in Fremantle and Perth city seeing all the chandleries and sailmakers that DeckHardware supplies. Each trip interstate I carry a range of both the new lines and some of the more popular existing lines to ‘jog’ their memories on some of our range. At 1800 the Cunard cruise liner Queen Mary2 left the port of Fremantle and I was one of several hundred to watch her leave. As you can see see, the QM2 is rather large, especially on the confined waters of the port, where the World Womens match racing was held last December.

Thursday was spent seeing those south in Bunbury, several hours drive south of Perth with Friday finishing off with those in Mandurah and Henderson.

In the course of the week and just over 2000kms on the road I saw some forty new and existing DeckHardware customers, next week will see me driving once more to Brisbane and the Gold Coast, usually on these trips and those south to Victoria [ coming up at the end of the month] I see around 100 customers in the week.

Hopefully the deluge that the East Coast of Australia in recent weeks will have receded somewhat and allow me to get through without any issues.

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Adams 10m Titles

February 8, 2012 Leave a comment

Ben Nossiter skippering Sirius shook off the Hoodoo of recent times and claimed his second title in over 20 years of sailing Adams 10s. For as long as some can remember Ben has been the top boat in the Middle Harbour Yacht Club fleet, however each time the championship came around  success eluded him. This year however, with 4 wins and a second in 7 races, Ben showed the fleet his transom.

SiriusWith close racing at the front end the minor placings were fought to the end with Dr Paul Saunders’ Let Loose helmed on this occasion by Chris Mathews coming out ahead of former multiple winner Another Dilemma. Each year Tim Gallego makes the round trip from his new home in England to steer Jim Curtis’ Another Dilemma on this occasion duelling with Let Loose for the minor placings.

Winner of the last three championships, Eat My Shorts [Peter Johnson] was relegated to fifth behind Mitch Miller on Rock Solid. Winner of the Pat Carroll Memorial trophy for the older timber seated boats was Coconut Telegraph helmed on this occasion by Adam Rowlinson.

Middle Harbour Yacht Club principal race officer Phil Yeomans was given a hard task setting courses on Friday and Saturday due to the large run out tide against the prevailing Easterly winds. The second race start of Saturday was delayed several times in an effort to give the competitors a fair start. The conditions were testing on Friday with several crew members falling off boats in the choppy conditions. On Sunday they were liking the typical Summer Northeaster that Sydney Harbour offers with the race officials setting a course out of the tide.

The racing on Friday was marred by the sinking of Brian Lees’ Contentious in a start line incident with Let Loose. Brian was able to sail the stricken yacht around to the sandy bottom inside Grotto Point, where all the crew were taken off by the Middle Harbour tenders. Contentious was recovered the following day with many of the crews watching on as they finished racing, Brian watching the recovery from a surf ski safely from a distance.

With entries from Middle Harbour, Gosford, Lake Macquarie and Victoria, the Adams 10s continue to show good fleet racing. The 2013 Adams 10 Championship  venue is yet to be finalised.

Photo Album One

Photo Album Two

Photo Album Three

Contentious

Contentious on the bottom

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