Club Working Bee 15 July

We have scheduled our club working bee for 8.00am on Saturday, 15 July.

We need at least 30 people, so we would appreciate it if anyone who is in town could come.

It would be a good idea to label all your gear before then, because we will be moving all the boats and equipment out of the shed.  We will try to keep property together, but will take no responsibility for missing items.  The best way to safeguard your gear is to come to the working bee!

Could you please email Andrew Cox this week at ar.cox@bigpond.com to confirm your attendance.

The tasks are as follows:

1. Fitting laser racks and dolly racks into the former SHS space – Geoff Kirk and Mark Bethwaite will lead, 4 others are required
2. Preparing and painting north wall, updating signage and preparing and painting south wall – Andrew Simpson will lead, 4 others are required
3. Plumbing removal of vent pipes from west wall and possible other works – Pat Levy will lead, 1 other is required
4. Gurney gang to remove fungus from headstocks and clean ramp – Jim Dounis will lead, 3 others are required
5. South deck clean up, including cutting up scrap – Craig Sheers will lead, 3 others are required
6. General club clean out – remove all boats, reallocate racks, remove rubbish, sweep – Andrew Cox will lead, 3 others are required (plus all hands at first)
7. Jazzman maintenance – Gerry Donohoe and Dene Bergman will do this
8. Bergman trailering and removal from water for service – Pat Levy will lead, 7 others are required briefly

Thank you each for your commitment to this!

Youth Sail in QLD

Queensland Youth Week was proudly hosted by Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron with support from Australian Sailing from 30 June to 4 July.

There was not a lot of wind but glorious sunshine to bask in. There were 34 sailors in total and our DBSC Youth Sailors represented with some commendable results:

Laser 4.7 fleet:

• 1st - Jack Littlechild
• 2nd - Zac West
• 6th - Brooke Wilson
• 8th - Mark Louis
• 11th - Sylvie Stannage
• 14th - Daniel Costandi

Big Boat Race Report

Report from Jonathan Stone:

Six boats signalled their intention to race on a cool, sunny, cloudless afternoon.

The morning land-breeze - always a westerly - eased ahead of an expected sea-breeze; which never made a showing.

Five of us rigged and found our way to the start area; but on T&T we had to use our engine to avoid being late; as the breeze faded and faded.

But the gate start worked and we turned towards Point Piper looking for wind, inching eastwards. Graham’s new Farr 30 Calypso inched fastest, followed by T&T, Chenonceau, Liaison and Corinna, none of us doing more than half a knot.

As Calypso slid away, Chenonceau made a move, sliding over T&T into second place. It took well over half an hour for Calypso to complete the first leg of less than 1 nautical mile; as she headed out into the Harbour, to reach Taylor’s Bay the wind died entirely and Chenonceau was the only other boat to complete the leg.

In short - we cancelled at that point and headed for home, under power. T&T had an eventful time of it; as we prepared to throw a tow line to Corinna our crew lost his footing, caught by a sharp wake in the calmest conditions. He is fit and scrambled quickly back on board, and we implemented the tow in a seamanlike fashion.  For the record, he was wearing a life vest; but didn’t need even to inflate it. He was back in the cockpit without delay.

We all unrigged and sat on the deck in the afternoon sun. A lovely afternoon, but no good for sailing.

Order at cancellation:

1. Calypso
2. Chenonceau
3. Liaison
4. T&T
5. Corinna

We race again on August 6

Farewell to SBHS

We are disappointed to announce SBHS has decided to move its sailing program from DBSC.

There are a number of reasons for this, one of the most significant being the difficulty encountered by some of the younger, less-experienced school sailors in manoeuvring boats in the relatively confined spaces between moored boats while also avoiding ferry traffic.

We would like to thank SBHS, and in particular its Principal, Kim Jaggar, for a long and supportive relationship. SBHS made significant contributions to the club over the years, both culturally and financially.

Our affiliation with SBHS was an important part of our cultural commitment to be part of the community and to offer services to a user-base wider than just our own membership.  We would welcome ideas as to how we can continue this commitment following the departure of SBHS. If you know of an organization that might be interested in partnering with DBSC for the conduct of its sailing activities, please let us know.

SBHS was very generous in its financial contributions to the club, including funds towards the purchase of our RIBs, funds via a government grant for our clubhouse expansion, and a six-year pre-payment of affiliation fees again to assist with our clubhouse expansion. In addition, the SBHS students who used the club were strong contributors to canteen revenue.

Thank you again to SBHS for being part of DBSC for so long.  We will miss you.

Working Bee Saturday 15 July

We’ll be meeting on Saturday morning, July 15th at 8am for our annual mid-winter working bee. To make it a success we need your help.

We’ll be doing a general clean out and some other works around the club including:

• Repainting north facing wall of the club
• Amending signage and repainting of the south facade
• Fixing the light at entry 
• Creating new laser racks from the SBHS racks (this is important to allow us to replace the boat storage revenue from SBHS)
• Fixing broken dollies 
• Gerni gunning algae off headstocks as per engineer’s report 
• Pressure cleaning ramps (please bring a pressure cleaner with you if you have one)

We're a volunteer club and this is important, so we’d appreciate it if you could take a few hours to help on the 15th.

South Pacific Laser Masters, 21-24 July

Want some practice for the Laser Masters Worlds, an early exit from hibernation or just a mid-winter break?

The South Pacific Laser Masters are on again at Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron. Pencil in 21-24 July, 2017 for great Masters competition and superb sailing.

Early bird discount entry is only $190 including the popular Thursday night Laser Forum and the famous Regatta Dinner. Don’t miss out - you’ll find the 2017 SPLM NOR and entry form HERE and you can enter online HERE.

Big Boat Race Sunday July 2

The Big Boats race again this Sunday July 2, with a 1pm start. It is the second of our three winter races. The course as in the sailing instructions here. Please remember to turn your radios on to VHF 72 and let Jonathan Stone know if you can make it by emailing jonathanston@gmail.com.

Winter Sailing Continues

We have been having a turnout of at least half a dozen sailors for each of the bi-weekly winter sailing sessions. Most important, the wind has also attended and allowed for a good session on the water. We usually pick some fixed marks and do short sprints with a rabbit start. It is a good chance to experiment and improve your technique as well as enjoy the early morning beauty of Sydney Harbour. Sessions are the first Saturday of the month and the third Sunday, when there is a fifth Saturday we will do that too and hope the wind attends!

About a day before a ‘Doodle' link is sent to all members. If you do not want to receive these email social@dbsc.com.au and ask to be removed from the list.

If you are keen to participate the easiest way to use Doodle is to download the free app to your phone. The interface is simpler and you can easily note your attendance and also add messages to other people attending within the window such as 'I’m coming down early' or 'I intend to stay later’. In general we are on the water at 8 and stay till about 10 leaving plenty of weekend for family and friends.

Come and join us on Saturday July 1st!

A winter's morning at DBSC.

Op-Ed: can we do better

I refer to the recent politburo discussion paper of installing "12 pokies in the disable toilets" to help pay for the cost of re-piling the clubhouse: I think we can do better.

In terms of generating revenue, it is clear there are two significant economic routes we can take on the gambling front.  We can follow the path of Canley-Vale Diggers or Jamie's Barangaroo.  With that in mind, let's think about what we can do with our disable toilets.

Under the Diggers' approach we should be thinking of installing at least 30 poker machines in the disabled toilets, or go to a 100 pokies by using all three toilets.  Additionally, we could leverage our excellent culinary traditions in providing victualling for the gamblers (although 2-minute noodles isn't much of stretch.)  The downside would be the need for a roster of members to patrol the local streets to ensure the kids left in the cars do their home work.

Under Jamie's model, we go the high-roller route.  Baccarat, being the preferred game because it takes gamblers the longest to lose all their money, would be offered at one table with US$10k per bet limits.  Under this model we would have to employ some guest hospitality workers to provide the appropriate servicing of the high-rollers.  We would have to ensure that there was no European sunbathing by said guest-workers when the 4.7 fleet was training or competing.

Clearly, we can do much, much better than only 12 pokies.

PS:  For those of you who have flown business class or first class on vacation, here is another alternative: https://asf.org.au/donate/dbsc-development/, 

Membership fees overdue

One of the most unpleasant duties of the commodore is to chase fees.  I know it's not sailing season, so you're probably not even thinking about it.

But here's why it's important. 

We incur most of our large expense items in the off-season, not the sailing season. 

Our insurance is due in winter, our boats are serviced in winter, this year's piles and davit repairs are paid for in winter, club maintenance occurs in winter.

In fact, 75% of our expenses for this coming financial year will occur in the three months of May, June and July.  So even though you're not sailing, the club is spending. 

The low point in our bank account is going to be $6,000 in July, and that assumes the $27,000 of overdue fees are paid.  We need your money now.

Also, it takes a lot of time chasing up fees.  Your volunteers have to find time for this between all the other pressures of life.  It's the last thing they need. 

For example, Clare is about to have to send individual emails to 40 of you.  Think how much of her time that is going to waste.

We don't want to have to start moving boats around in the racks, which is about the only stick we have.  We're really not that sort of club.

Of course, if you can't pay now for whatever reason, let us know.  We will understand.  And if you're not sure if you've paid, please ask.

But other than that, please help us to remain the sort of club we want to be.  Where everyone pitches in and helps.  And we get done what has to get done because we want to.  No sticks required.

Thanks for your help with this.  PS, we would really appreciate your tax deductible voluntary donations too.