THIS SITE WILL CLOSE DOWN ON MAY 31st 2012.

you will be able to view photos and reports on the Port Stephens Yacht Club Site HERE

It is over!!!!

What a marvellous week, great sailing, all sorts of weather, some top get togethers after the races, especially our Friday night "Pot Luck" bring your own which we on the committee expected to be a quiet night, ended up as one of the best!!

The Saturday Night Party put on by Salamander Shores was really wonderful, I left at around midnight and there were still some partying on!  Some pics HERE

Make sure that you look at the photos on this site towards the end of this week, you will find them HERE

Perhaps the best way to sum it all up is for me to put the text of my address on Saturday Evening on this site, so here it is:

Mr Mayor Bob Westbury and the Port Stephens Shire Council and councillors, we are most grateful for your interest in this event and for your support both physical and financial.   Great to see you here with us tonight..

Firstly I would like to thank all our overseas teams and supporters for travelling such long distances to be with us for the past week.
 
The 34 host families without whose support this event would not have been possible.

The Sister Cities Committee, Ted Tindall, John Smith, Jeanine Wilson,  Arthur Heiler, Ken Buckingham and Bill Armstrong and our Committee, Bill Haskell and Deirdre Roberts for a magnificent effort over many months.

Now for the last week.    Our Starters including our Race Officer, Jim Quinn, assisted by Heather Atkins Taffy Rowlands, and Jenny Way on the perfect start boat, "Ruby Tuesday," generously supplied by Ray and Chris Dean.   Jim had a very difficult job which he carried out with great aplomb as you would expect from an ex headmaster.

Also on the water,were our support boats manned and supplied by  Laurie, Alan. Chris, Ian, Dieter,Rob and Anne Rottenbury, plus Roger Yeo who compiled result sheets on a very well designed spreadsheet when the complexities certainly beat me!

 On the shore… Our bar staff, who worked tirelessly, especially Merrill Land and Richard Turner who did a very long shift last night, Debbie Sim who kept the grog up to us.    Our volunteers loading lunches, our tea makers fantastic assistance from all of you.   Deirdre Roberts who masterminded all the social events.   Wonderful

A special mention to our Bus Driver, Graeme Tinkler who saved us a huge amount of angst by helping us organise the best possible tours and for his assistance to our committee before the event.   He drove every day and made all of his passengers feel like his best freinds.    Thanks so much Graeme.

Our Spectator Boats   Bill Kings “Kingfisher”, Peter and Julie Long’s Adagio, and Doug Curtis’s lovely Water Dancer who danced herself onto the mud yesterday afternoon.   Thank you all.     Bill King said that he had been here since 1974 and that this was the best event both on and off the water that he had seen on the last 38 years!    You have all contributed to this.

 The Boat Owners who unselfishly loaned their beloved craft, our Hood fleet provided some great racing with some dark horses emerging!

The Corlette Point Blokes who supplied three of our Etchells and Rob and Nathan Quinn who supplied Cool Bananas.   Also Robert Chapman and Chris Wilson who supplied Wings.   (Not to forget Peter Ballard who towed her here from Lake Macquarie.)

A special thanks to Lou Fagan who acted as our Media Coverage Generator who arranged great support from local and Newcastle Radio and Press coverage.

The Photographers Julie Long, Pauline McCarthy, Henk Tobbe and any other who took photos both on and off the shore.
 
While I am on photographs, I already have most of them but if any of you have a collection that you would like to share, please let me have copies of those that you took so that I can cut them onto a DVD and post them to all our team captains.   As well as this, I will put edited copies onto our website with a Flicker link so that you can all view them at your leisure and download them.    Time did not permit me to do this today.   I will also put the detailed result sheets on the site as soon as I can, probably tomorrow evening.
 I would now like to thank our own Australian Team, and owners representatives who sailed and assisted magnificently.    We tried to beat the Kiwis but, once again, they emerged victorious.   Just wait until Bellingham.    We will all be into heavy rugby type training months ahead of your 2014 event.
     
This brings me to one very special person.    Bill Haskell who has masterminded and guided our committee for this whole event as well as carrying out his normal duties as our Club Secretary.  .   He has worked constantly for over 18 month to ensure the success of this event.   His support to both this committee and our own Club Board has been fantastic and constant for the last 18 months or so.. 
 Our board will be recommending to our Annual General Meeting that Bill be appointed a Life Member of the Port Stephens Yacht Club.

 Thank you all once again, see you in Bellingham in 014

Roger Yeo and I have compiled a summary of the conditions that we met with on the water... here it is.

Report written by Vice Commodore Roger Yeo on Wednesday 21st

Great kick off on Sunday night to relax folks ... 'break the ice' as we say ... good food, good wine, good company, good music and lots of good cheer!

Now after two days of racing that's delivered every condition we could ask for in Port Stephens, the fleets are starting to sort themselves out. Monday initially delivered 15 knots plus (so no spinnakers) that grew to over 20 knots in the afternoon forcing abandonment of the 3rd race. It was wet and exciting and a great baptism for sailors from Japan, Russia, Canada, the U.S. and our friends from across the ditch! At the end of Day 1, New Zealand led the Etchells Fleet followed by the U.S. and Canada, while the Hood Fleet was tied by Canada and our home team followed by New Zealand.

A second day allowed us to get in four races in great conditions ... winds from 10 to 12 knots from the SE easing in the afternoon to very light form the NE. Great test of skills to make these boats go in a variety of conditions. Produced some considerable excitement around the buoys that brought out the competitive nature of all sailors around the world! Lots of shouting and even a few bumps! So with 6 races in the bag New Zealand leads overall from Australia and the U.S. by a narrow 8 points followed by Canada, Russia and Japan. New Zealand leads the Etchells Fleet from Canada and the U.S. and Australia fronts the Hoods from N.Z. and the U.S. Lay day today to visit the Hunter and do a bit of sight seeing.

Following written by John Way:

Thursday started off with a grey day with a few showers and 10 to 15 knots from the south and east.   Very tricky conditions with a lot of shifts.   Australia performed badly but the mastery of the Kiwi’s showed through with another win and a second in the Etchells and a 2nd and a 3rd in the Hoods.   Once again the rain and wind proved unsuitable for racing and we only managed to get two races in for the day.

Friday, started off with a glassy calm.   Eventually we just managed enough breeze to enable a start and then the wind died completely, the course was shortened and just as the first couple of yachts finished, the breeze freshened from the west enabling us to have a non-spinnaker joust for the second race.

We were due for a change of boats before the afternoon races but, unfortunately, the wind strengthened to a 30 to 40 knot westerly and racing had to be abandoned.    This left us with 10 out of the 12 races sailed and with hopes to sail the remaining two the following morning.  
When the wind came!!

Saturday

Briefing at 8.30 saw the wind increase to well over 20 knots so, the Race Committee decided to call it a day and not sail the last two races.

The result was that we had all had a great time, very little damage to the yachts and everyone had enough energy to be able to enjoy the closing party on Saturday Night.

       

It is on!!!!

We are now into our fourth day of intense competition and the results are on this site.   Just scan down on the left hand side and go to "results and photos and there you are!!!

Radio Interview

I was interviewed by our local Community Radio Station the other day.   Bob Mackay asked me all sorts of leading questions about our coming event.

If you would like to listen to it, click HERE

It takes a couple of minutes to download and make sure that you have your sound turned up!

5 Days to go!!!

Getting close now.   We have collected the sixth Etchells from the Lake Macquarie Yacht Club, erected the mast and it is sitting on its road trailer ready to be placed in the water next Sunday Morning right on the hight tide at 6am.   This yacht has been very generously donated by Robert Chapman from Lake Macquarie and is for sale at the end of our event.  

Looking forward to our overseas guests arriving on Friday, Saturday and Sunday ready for our Welcoming Ceremony on Sunday evening at the Soldiers Point Bowling Club.  

Prior to this we will all have a familiarisation cruise around the harbour so that our visitors can get used to the yachts and have a look at our fantastic waterway.

Part of the welcoming ceremony will be a Welcome to Country by our local Aboriginal People of the Worimi tribe.

This will be the last update, my next contributions will be results sheets!!!   (And a few photos of the races!)