SYC Keel Updates

The summer series has now officially ended with all keelboat racing programs now complete. Our winter series is well underway for our Wednesday Wonders sailors with race five scheduled for this week. This weekend is the first race of our Saturday Round the Stix winter series which starts at 1200 hrs. This race serves a dual purpose being both race one of the winter series and also race one of the Alan Shiels Memorial Trophy (combined with race seven). Historically, this is a slightly longer course hence the start time being brought forward. This Sunday also sees the commencement of our Sunday Sailors Winter Series at the usual time of 0930 hrs.

Although it’s heading into winter, there’s still plenty of activity, both on and off the water at the club and below is a few updates/reminders:

• All of the Notice of Races for the various winter series are now online and can accessed by clicking here. You can also enter online if you haven’t already done so by clicking here.
• Sail Presentation Night is fast approaching on Friday 25 May. Bookings are now open and you can view all of the information and the booking form by clicking here. Once completed, if you could please return this to Maddie at [email protected] or drop the form in at main reception that would be appreciated. Remember, bookings close on Friday 18 May and it’s always best to get your booking in sooner rather than later to avoid the disappointment of missing out as this night always books out quickly!
• Saturday Round the Stix Winter Series non-spinnaker division – Upon feedback received from some members, Sail Committee has introduced a ‘non-spinnaker’ division for the Saturday Round the Stix winter series which will be scored on PHS only. The addition of the ‘non-spinnaker’ division will simply add a third division onto the existing two divisions with this third division being for non-spinnaker entrants only. The ‘non-spinnaker’ division will provide those who don’t own a spinnaker or aren’t comfortable flying one with the opportunity to come out and compete on a Saturday afternoon (every second Saturday throughout winter) and not be penalised for not flying a spinnaker in a calculated performance based handicap system.
• For all those who have an IRC certificate, please be reminded that these expire at the end of May. If you are competing in the Saturday Round the Stix winter series, I’d encourage you to start looking into this now to ensure that you have an IRC rating come our first race in June on Saturday 2 June (race three in the series). Unfortunately, if these certificates are not renewed by 2 June, we cannot back date the race results. Revalidations for IRC certificates are now available. Click here to revalidate your IRC certificate.
• Sail Committee has organised a guest speaker night for this coming Thursday 10 May in the Port Phillip Room at 7:30pm. Lex Bertrand will be presenting on local weather and this will be an absolutely fantastic opportunity to learn a bit about our local weather systems to help you optimise your racing performance. This is open to anyone who is interested with no RSVP’s required so why not bring along your family and friends!
• Lastly, at the end of each season, we run an end of season review where all keelboat skippers and crew are encouraged to attend and provide feedback on the night. The date for this will be Thursday 21 June at 7:30pm in the Port Phillip Room. This will be the perfect opportunity to have your say and provide feedback to the Sail Committee on things that did and didn’t work well over the last 12 months.

 As always, if there is anything that we can do to assist you with, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us on 9599 0922 or [email protected].