Dates for the Diary

New Members

The Committee and Members of Safety Beach Sailing Club would like to extend a warm welcome to the following new and returning members. We look forward to meeting you at the club or seeing you out on the water very soon:

• Justin, Rachel Connell & Caitlyn Mace
• Nigel, Marie & Lachlan Cunliffe
• Mark Ongarello & Kara Mason
• Chris Beggs
• Peter & Karen Beggs
• Simon Judge
• Peter Murphy 

Whats on @ SBSC

IT’S BACK - SATURDAY NIGHT 19TH JUNE – WINTER FOOD & WINE DINNER

After a little hibernation, Snooks Catering and the Safety Beach Sailing Club are pleased to showcase a night of fine food and wine.
Partnering with local winery, Quealy Wines of Balnarring.

Enjoy a five course degustation menu, prepared to compliment all things our Peninsula has to offer.
Education about the wine from the wine maker - Kathleen Quealy

BOOK NOW via Try Booking Link https://www.trybooking.com/BRSES

• $120 SBSC MEMBERS
• $135 NON-MEMBERS

Limited numbers so book early.
Promotional discount for wine purchases on the night. 

Clubhouse Renovation Update

Dear members,
On May 31st, The Mornington Peninsula Shire Council (MPSC) via the successful tenderer, will undertake cosmetic works to the exterior of the building. The scope of these works is significant. Many members will have noticed that the exterior, particularly around the canteen area and upstairs deck areas, are in desperate need of repair. These works will be the remedy to fix and in many cases replace what have become ugly blights on our building. Listed below are the items
that are scheduled to take place.
External Items:

• Ground floor & 1st floor eave replacement
• Water leak investigation/rectification associated with eave replacement
• Veranda post replacement
• Decking material renewed
• External stair tread, landing & tactile renewal
• External cladding above windows & doors renewed
• Ground floor training room external access door renewed
• 1st floor external windows repaired/renewed

Internal items:

• Kiosk cool room access door renewed
• Water leak investigation & repair in ground floor training room

As the building we occupy is owned by the MPSC, the council have an obligation to make good many of the significant repairs being undertaken in this round of works. As a tenant of the building, we have the opportunity to work with council on projects that the club feels will enhance our members experience of the club, such as the recent internal bar works. As a tenant, we are not allowed to make any changes to the club without the consent of the MPSC, so any changes we wish to make need to be fully thought through and need to be well planned to ensure consent is given by council. The MPSC were seeking complete access and shutdown of the club throughout the renovation works, which didn’t sit well with the house committee, so with much negotiation, we have ensured that it will be business as usual at the club during the 6-8 week period, whilst the works take place. There may be some disruption, however we are hoping it will be minimal.
Once completed, I’m sure all members will be pleased with the outcome of these works, which will only compliment the works that were undertaken last year.
Cheers!
Mono
(On behalf of the House Committee)

OTB Report

Sorry for the lack of reporting over the last couple of weeks, nothing happened last week with the foul weather anyway. But this week- beautiful sailing weather! Not much wind, but enough to get a start. A fleet of about 16 boats headed out with high hopes of a nice day on the water if nothing else, but we were pleasantly surprised. I went out on Sutherland with the legendary Rob Campbell (evil man-EVIL! to set the course with Tim Bardon and Nick Meijer on Woodsie and the always cheerful Deidre and Geoff in the start boat. Race one was sailed in fairly light breeze with no surprises, except Katrina Mackie who was trying out the new Sabre experimental sail with great effect, blitzing most of the field and right on Fearless Bill’s clacker! Good luck getting that back off her!
Also of note was he appearance of The Cisco Kid and Pancho, AKA Ross and Natasha Martin who apparently partied pretty hard the night before at Natasha and Mike’s engagement party and were no doubt grateful for the light conditions!
Race Two started after a course rearrangement but fizzled out after one leg as the wind finally gave up the ghost, ah well not to worry , it was still a beautiful day!

This coming week is the final race of the summer season, so is no to be missed. Hopefully with the current Covid 19 restrictions we won’t be affected so stay tuned !
The following week, the 6th of June marks the start of our inaugural winter season, so get your winter Woolies out and have a crack ! The Sailing Instructions for the 2021 Winter Series, which includes the schedule of races, has now been published on the club website and can be viewed HERE.

That’s all for now, see you on Sunday !
Peter Chipperfield

Keelboat & Tower News

Last week's results

We seem to be faced with a feast or famine for our Sunday races and unfortunately this week there was a definite lack of wind on course with no yachts completing the course within the 3 hour time limit however, it was a lovely day to be out on the water.  Lets hope for better luck this Sunday which will be the last race for the 2021 Autumn Series.

Thank you to our dedicated tower team this week of Mark and Elaine.

For all the Winter Season Results please go to Keelboat Results.

This week's program

This is the last race in the Autumn Season so get out for a blast before we get into the BMWS Pursuit Races which start on the 6th June - more details and a start sheet to follow next week.

Cruisers Corner

Please find below report from Peter and Abby Dyson on board 2Gether II who are currently enjoying some marina time in Gladstone Harbor.  Abby has been updating the cruising site from time to time and via the face book pages, whilst Peter has been updating the Predictwind GPS tracker page with our journey stops and a short explanation, so hopefully they can add in blanks that we miss here!

We set off on Friday 26th March with a mission to get up the coast as fast as possible, at least to Jervis Bay, before we take a bit more time on cruising. We tried to do the same journey 12mths earlier only to have to turn around before getting into NSW because of COVID lock-downs. Therefore we didn’t want to dally and get caught in another lock-down.  As children and later with our own family, we had spent a lot of summers up and down the Victorian and southern NSW coast so whilst we were interested to see it from an on-water perspective, we didn’t feel the need to go exploring those locations in any depth. Other key parts of the strategy was to minimise overnight passages and only set out where the conditions are relative mild. 

From Safety Beach we went to Cleerland Bight, then Refuge Cove (2nts) and onto Lakes Entrance (2nts) before heading to Eden. Lakes and Eden were both overnight passages with full moons and light winds. We picked up the public mooring at Eden and did do some reminiscing in the township. The whale museum is certainly a worthwhile visit. From Eden we went to Bermagui, Batemans Bay and arrived in Jervis Bay on Friday 9th April. BTW the public mooring under Snapper Island, Batemans Bay is a great spot to rest over night!  We moved around in Jervis Bay, having a lovely lunch at Huskisson Hotel and then anchoring near the Young Endeavour at Long Beach.

A list of stops from there are: Crookhaven River, Port Hacking, Pittwater (Bayview), Port Stephens, Forster Tuncurry, Camden Haven, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Yamba, South Port (Boat Works), Scarbrough, Mooloolaba, Tin Can Inlet, Gary’s Anchorage, South White Cliffs, Urangan (Hervey Bay), Bundaberg, Turkey Beach (Rodd’s Harbour) and Gladstone on Wednesday 19th May. Travel distance to date is 1,330 nautical miles over 55days. On the days we sailed we averaged 55NM per day.  So that’s the boring trip log part, but what about the highlights and lows?

Well certainly one of the highlights was meeting fellow yachties along the way, some of whom we still keep in touch with. We enjoy hearing the news from other SBSC cruisers and tracking them! It is amazing how many of us like minded people there are out here.  Today’s technology is great, particularly being able to stay in touch with family and friends through face time etc.  Seeing the Australian coast line, its ruggedness and beauty. Spotting a hammerhead shark right beside us as we were sailing to Coffs Harbour was certainly a highlight. Moonlit nights on passage. Stunning sunsets and sunrises never cease to thrill.  We were also quite surprised as to how quickly you adjust to boat life. We can see how attractive it is to live on a boat!!

One of the lows is that Abby suffered a major vertigo attack one night whilst in the Urangan Marina. We had excellent care in the Sunshine Hospital, although she is doing exercises, she is frustrated as its affecting her experience on the boat. It’s been a few weeks since then and she is still having minor issues with the vertigo.  Some of the bar crossings have been a challenge to say the least. Mooloobah and Wide Bay would probably be the worst. Wide Bay Bar is not for the faint hearted and though we went through a recommended 2hrs after High Tide. we discovered that the Coast Guard recommend only at high tide and the shifting sands make the leads positioned on the charts useless. So contact the Coast Guard and get and update early! 

The other low, though more of a grumble, is the amount of motoring that we have done! Very few days have been conducive to just having the sails out, but boy we appreciate it when it is! We have hopes that when these SE winds die down, we will find beautiful sailing days, with motors off and smooth seas. Maybe we might just dream on!

As you all know, boats need maintenance and we have had our fair share. Two toilets replaced, more batteries added, main halyard and clutch replaced, wind computer and speed log replaced to just name a few. Probably the most worrying was discovered when entering the Port of Gladstone, it is a requirement that all vessels exceed 10m LOA must call the Port as seek permission to enter the seaway. Wondering why they wouldn’t answer our VHF hails, we did discover that our radio was receiving but not transmitting, so we are awaiting a new one from Melbourne. We did though get pulled up by Border Force as we were motoring into Gladstone! After the usual banter on who let you Melbournians over the border and lots of questions, they wished us well on our journey.

We have attached some photos from the last few days travelling up the coast. 

ORCV News 

Firstly well done to all our local yachts that competed in the 68th running of the Apollo Bay Race last weekend.  Congratulations to Jason Close and the Patriot  crew with a 1st in ORC division and a 3rd in IRC.  Congratulations also to Rod Smallman and Leeton Hulley on Maverick with a 3rd in the Double Handed division.

ORCV Winter Series

Enter one or all four passage races. Entrants of race 1 are invited to partake in the on-water flare exercise prior to start. Race 2 will take you to Blairgowrie and Race 4 through to Geelong where you can enjoy the warm hospitality of our host clubs.
Enter the races here from Tuesday 25th May CLICK HERE.

ORCV 2022 Calendar

The ORCV 2022 Calendar is out too with 2022 shaping up to be a big year with two iconic races both celebrating their 50th anniversary.
Please mark your diary and join the 50th King Island in March 2022 and 50th Melbourne to Hobart in December 2022.In November 2022 we will run the Rudder Cup to Devonport in place of the normal Stanley race.
Check out the racing calendar HERE.