Club News

We are already well into racing and I wish you all a safe and successful
time on the water. Since Christmas there have been three races abandoned due to storm warnings, so when we do manage to start a race we should be truly thankful.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce a new member to our
club — just launched on Sunday 1 December. A brand new, freshly
caulked, Ranger-class yacht called Volunteer, with sail number A6.

“When too much sailing is barely enough!”
Adapted from the famous saying of Roy Slaven and HG Nelson

Next year, Hoana will be one hundred years old — I think! I bought her thirty-eight years ago, and everybody told me that she had been launched in 1920. Then, when Joe Adams gave me the line drawings which he and the next owner, Hank Kauffman, had made of her, I noticed that 1920 had been struck out, replaced by 1924.

On the eve of the year’s longest night, bathed in the luminous glow of a full moon, Sydney Amateurs marked the winter solstice with a soiree! A spirited company of crew members and esteemed guests, from the ship James Craig, revelled in a fabulous rollicking celebration.

We all have our foibles. Among my lesser obsessions is the urge to waste inordinate amounts of time fossicking on the internet for old images of boating on Sydney Harbour. The detail in glass-plate photography from a century ago is endlessly evocative.

Two weekends in May were set aside well in advance for a Working Bee. Planned in
detail by Bruce Dover and Trevor Cosh, work was allocated to the about 90 members
who volunteered to help.

The frantic pace of racing most weekends through Spring and Summer makes way for a more relaxed time around the Club as Autumn leads into Winter. In our last members’ survey, most suggested the best thing to do at the Amateurs was simply to hang around on the deck, before and after sailing.