Safety Beach Sailing Club NEWS 14th December
New Members
The Executive Committee and members would like to welcome the following new members to Safety Beach SC. We look forward to meeting you at the club or on the water in the very near future.
- Tim, Julie and Sophie Pepperell
- Sue Morrison
- Simon Isherwood, Amber Maxwell, Jasmine Milton
What's On In December
Get your festive gear on and come down to your local club for a Christmas catch up with great food and great friends.
Rear Commodore's News
Hi members,
There’s lots going on regarding on water stuff. Firstly there’s a Change to Sailing Instructions again this week for OTB. Racing this Sunday will commence at 10.30am meaning the first warning signal will be 10.27am. This will allow us to sail 2 races, particularly good for those practicing for National Titles at Christmas. It also allows enough time to derive and be back at the club for the Annual Christmas Party immediately following racing in the clubhouse.
Keelboat Changes Coming Soon
Following some discussions with Keel Boat Captain John Wemyss, we will be trialing some windward/leeward courses for Keel Boat Club Championship races. There will be more detail to follow, but trying to safely execute safe racing between Keel Boats and OTB is paramount. So to keep enough separation between both fleets, it was decided the safest way to finish races will be via a tower finish after completing a set windward/leeward course. The club will need to purchase some more buoy's and tackle. The proposed course will work well in anything from the South through to the North, however anything with off shore influence will not work. Look for a change to sailing instructions in the coming weeks.
Sail Training Committee
If you’ve been down at the club the last few weeks in the morning, the boat yard has been a hive of activity with young kids and families being given an introduction to sailing by three of our incredible junior members. Jess Lowe, Nick Meijer and Abbey Everett, on their own initiative (with backing from the EC) wanted to give back to the club and started their own “come try sailing” activity, with great success. the last couple of weeks has seen a dozen or so willing participants be totally engaged in the course being offered by our recently trained aforementioned juniors. Ably backed by Greg and Fiona Lowe, James Everett and some of the new member parents on Rhibs, these course offer an introduction to sailing and the club. Jess, Abbey and Nick have also put their hands up to join the training committee which will also include, Paul Fleming, Ewan Campbell and myself, to workshop a training structure for the club in season 2023/24. For now we are lucky to have and we should all be extremely grateful for the efforts that these kids have shown in filling a much needed gap in the clubs culture.
Yard Keys
New keys are now available for the boat yard and change rooms. James Everett (Yardmaster) is always lurking in the boat yard with eftpos machine in hand to take your $50.00 bond for a registered key. Anyone who has a kayak or boat in the yard or would like a key for midweek access, will need to see James to access to yard from next week on. I need to remind all members that it is each and every member’s responsibility to ensure the boat yard is left secure, as all the gates, lights and flags were either left open, on and flying, after last Sunday 11th Dec. Please don’t leave it to others, particularly Snooks Catering whose responsibility is not to clean up after members in the yard.
Fair Winds!
Rear Commodore Mono
Off The Beach News
Hi Gang.
Well the weather forecast all week said ‘ No go for Sunday’. But as usually happens, what they predict doesn’t often come true. We ended up having a cracker of a day’s racing with winds not getting much above 15 knots for most of the afternoon. That being said, the Northerly wind pushed up a really BIG swell that made things interesting to say the least! Whereas last week the wind was so light that it was virtually impossible to catch a wave, this week it was impossible not to catch one. In fact Andrew ‘Doc’ Taylor caught one that he said was like “ launching off a vertical cliff” and unfortunately his default response was to sit on his tiller- good night Nurse! Likewise, Murray McNeil fell foul with the waves and broke the mast on his Laser, but still managed to sail back to shore. I was in on of the rhibs having a fine time with Bruce Mansfield and the ever reliable Norm Kaye, while the other was manned by Paul Fleming and his two able bodied daughters, Lucy and Annabelle. RO this week was Bill Manning, who set a great course under the watchful eye of Super Deirdre.
Barring the breakages, we started out with 14 boats, which wasn’t a huge number but with the weather forecast was understandable . All those that stayed out said they had an awesome sail, to which I can confirm, as squeals of joy as the boats flew past had me regretting I wasn’t with them. At times the breeze dropped down enough to let the A class Cats foil safely and they were hootin’. Duncan McColl held it together enough to be the first Sabre across the line in both races- great job Dunc, make sure you tell Hamish! Also impressive to watch was Abbey E and Imogen M in their 420. As they flew past, ahead of Nick M and Riley E with Abbey fully stretched out on trapeze, belting out what I can only assume was another ABBA classic. Those dulcet tones changed to soggy gurgles though as a wayward wave put Abbey into an extra strong Lipton teabag and all we could see were her feet sticking out of the water! The force is strong with those two though, they were quickly going again and with a quick tack and screams of “STARBOARD”, there was no way they were letting the guys through!
I think the standout this week though goes to Finn Meijer, who with lack of crew to take out a 420, opted to sail an RS Tera instead. Now that’s not exactly a big boat and Finn is not small, so there was not a lot of spare room and at times there wasn’t much sail above the waves as they got pretty big as the day wore on. Never the less, Finn battled on all day and sailed both races. I'm not sure how many times he tipped in, but he never gave up and it wasn’t until the last mark with one leg to finish that a fateful spill put him. Luckily Norm was keeping a good eye on him (I was still laughing at Abbey- sorry) and we were quickly there to help if needed. Finn managed to get his boat upright a couple of times but the wind had picked up again and he looked pretty spent, so we opted on the safe side and pulled both He and the Tera onto the rhib and delivered them to the beach. On the way in , a quick radio call to Geoff in the tower meant there were many hands ready on the beach to help out. A really gutsy effort Finn and my vote for sailor of the week (is that a thing?)
Ok, nearly done. I hope you all received the text and email letting you know about the early start this Sunday, 10.27 first warning, 10.30 start. This is to give everyone a chance to get cleaned up and into their gladrags for the SBSC Mighty Christmas Bash. Forget Carols by Candlelight, this is the one to be at! I’ve heard that Elton John, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen might be performing this year! That might be wrong, but would you really want to risk missing out ?
Cheers for now and see you Sunday, Pete Chippy
Try Sailing
And with that we had our final TrySailing session for the year! It has been amazing getting to meet so many new people and for most get them started on their sailing journey.
Many thanks to our participants: Winton, Grace, Xavier, Jamieson, Harrison, Lauren, Evan, Veronica, Jacob, Harvey and Sophie.
And a huge thanks to all the parents, who this wouldn’t be possible without.
Hope to see you all next year and Merry Christmas!
Abbey, Jess and Nick.
Keelboat News
Results:
Friday Twilight Pursuit (Race 10)
| 1st | Liberty | Mark Watson |
| 2nd | Scamp | David Phillips |
| 3rd | Christela | Greg Clark |
Margaret Hollamby Female Helm (Race 2)
| 1st | Glenys Hitchen | Christela |
| 2nd | Lori Wilson | E’toile |
| 3rd | Jacki Bange | Fransiska |
Sunday Summer Series (Race 5)
| 1st PHD | Patriot | Jason Close |
| 1st AMS | Patriot | Jason Close |
| 1st ORC | Patriot | Jason Close |
Division 2:
Unfortunately Etoile was the sole Div. 2 boat this week and we strongly encourage other Div. 2 boats to join them to make it a race.
See full results here for the weekend.
Thanks to everyone who helped out over the weekend – Sunday: the start boat crew, Amanda Malin and Graeme Ainslie in tower. Friday night: we had our stalwarts in the tower (Amanda, Judy and Elaine) who are always there to set up, be race officer, process results – or all three! And thanks to duty boat Amazing Grace and a new member to the club, Bruce Mansfield who also assisted in a busy tower that night.
This Week’s Races:
Friday 16 December –
Fun Xmas Twilight Pursuit with Optional Spinnaker/Extras
| First Warning Signal: | 17.25H Pursuit Start | |
| Tower: | Race Officer: | Elaine Nicholas |
| Duty Boat: | New Morning II |
Please check your Friday Pursuit Time
This week we have our last twilight for 2022 and it is the perfect opportunity to get the Spinnaker out. If you elect to run an extra sail, please notify the Tower when signing on for the race on VHF 69 and add 4-minutes to your nominated start time. If you need any assistance, please send us an email at
To check your ‘normal’ start time, please click here Friday Pursuit Time and click on the ‘Entrants’ list for 16/12/22.
Sunday 18 December – Shark Bay Holiday Series (Race 1)
| First Warning Signal: | 09:55H Combined Tower Start | |
| Tower: | Race Officer: | John Wemyss |
| Tower Assistant: | Anthea |
The Shark Bay Holiday Series is a separate series consisting of six morning races over the festive season. This Sunday (18 December) is the first race in the series and we have a first warning signal at 9:55H so that we can all have a great morning on the water and be back in time for the SBSC Christmas Celebrations and 2-Course Lunch at 2.00pm (free seating), please RSVP to David before 16 December.
Photo Of The Week
What happened to summer??? Still loading perhaps?
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