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Presentation Dinner, 4th May 2019

Inshore captains, crew, families and friends gathered together after the Lady Skippers Race last Saturday to celebrate the end of the 2018/19 Summer Racing Season.

The evening began with dinner and the attendees enjoyed a slideshow highlighting the best photos of the season.  Special thanks to Chris Bender whose photography from Success has massively complemented the on-course photos taken by Frances Hammond and others.  You can find the photos from the slideshow on OneDrive.

Once dessert had been served the formal part of the evening got underway hosted by Inshore Captain Brian Cooper.  We began with a few words from Vice Commodore Mike Walker followed by a presentation to our Race Control Team.

The Division Two Consistency First Place shield for the Winter Season was presented to Steve Delfos and the crew of Minke, correcting an error made at the Winter Series presentations.

Brian followed up with a short summary of our season:

Our sailing season started with Opening Day in early October 2018 and finished today in May 2019.  It is a long time, and encompassed not only 18 programmed races for Consistency, Championship and Memorial events, but with two all day races to Rockingham, a weekend to Hillarys, two non- Consistency races, and the special trophy races that included, Opening Day, Australia Day, Anzac Day, ending finally with todays, Lady Skippers race.  Keeping Count so far?

Some simple mathematics will show we may have pulled off the Impossible.

Let me explain!

Had you been counting, that makes 27 programmed races in 29 weeks and 6 days.  That’s our normal schedule, tight but doable! Now, We lost a race in February to bad weather, that took the pressure off, now only 26 events to handle …..easy you say !

But we then take out, Christmas and Easter breaks and long weekends which add up to the equivalent of 5 weeks removed, that only gives us 24 weeks and 6 days to fit it all in.

YES  26 Races in 24 weeks and 6 days.  Yet every year we seem to be able to pull it off.

We had 61 yachts that nominated this year, some never got to race, but that’s ok, at least they wanted to be part of the fun!

Division 1 had 17 nominations.  Division 2 with 19 nominations. and Div. 6 Jib & Main a massive 25 nominations.  Of those 61 yachts, 36 or 59 %yachts joined our fleets over the season with 5 of those 36 sailing all the consistency races that were run.  Tonight sees the culmination of all your efforts. 

From the partners & family left at home each week to the Start crew who make things happen on the water for us all on Saturdays, Travis Burtenshaw  and the staff in the Sailing Office,  your dedicated team of volunteers on the committee who give freely of their time to ensure  it all keeps running smoothly, then finally of course, you the sailors that keep turning up to make their efforts worthwhile.  I thank you all!

Seeing the numbers here tonight shows me that Inshore Racing at FREMANTLE SAILING CLUB is still very healthy.  Give yourselves a round of applause and thank you!

I now ask the following people to stand and remain standing.

Colin MacDougall, Steve Delfos, Ernie Delfos, Frances Hammond, John Palmer, Mick Gillum, Roger Passmore, Steven Kerr & Rear Commodore Sail Connor Moran

  • Colin – our Principal Race Officer
  • Roger – Division 1 representative
  • Steve D – Division 2 representative and Treasurer
  • Steve K – Division Jib & Main rep
  • Ernie – Handicapper & results coordinator
  • Mick – Committee rep
  • John – Committee rep
  • Connor – Safety Officer & Rear Commodore Sail
  • Frances – Publicity Officer, assistant Secretary, assistant results coordinator, Photographer (on water) and sailor on Pipedream III
  • Missing tonight is Ian Ward -Secretary and Twilight Representative.

I wish to publicly thank all of you, “The Inshore Committee”, for your input over the past year and hope that you will see your way to continue in 2020.

Presentations were then made to the winning boats in the Consistency and Championship series and the winners of the Trophy Races were acknowledged.

Congratulations to Eric (Gathy) Gath’s Stimulus Package who scooped the pool in Division One with a First in IRC and TCF in both the Consistency and Championship Series.  Brian Cooper’s Valkyr took first for Division Two on TCF in both the Championship and Consistency series and Ernie Delfos’s Windswept took first in Division Two on IRC in the Championship and Consistency series.  Franco Pieri’s Medusa was first in JAM on TCF in both series.  Full results for the season can be found on www.sportspage.com.au – look for the FSC Progressive Results.

Garth Silcock presented the Life Member’s Trophy for the season and after suitable suspense the envelope was opened, the card hiding the winners name was removed from the shield and the winner was – Brian Cooper’s Valkyr!  The winner is ascertained using a special formula known only to the life members.  Congratulations Brian!

We also acknowledged the contribution of Janine and Doug Taylor – Doug is retiring from racing after many many years of active participation most recently racing in his boat Bagheera X.

Thank you again to all who go to make our season happen – skippers, crew, race control, committee, Travis and crew and the front of house staff at the club.  See you all on the water for the Winter Series with Race One happening on the 8th June.

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