Greetings on the second day of the Chinese Dragon New Year,

As you will all be aware, between Anzan and Al, we are becoming familiar with the customs and traditions of China. Anzan informed me my birthyear is a dog, Thysje is a rabbit and Anzan is a tiger. Well dogs are my favourite animals so I am well pleased with my allocation.

Because it was the Chinese new year yesterday, our luncheon was a mixture of Chinese dumplings provided by Anzan, some sweet and sour pork bone nibbles and some exotic sausages, onions, bread and sauce. I must say that for the rest of the sailing day I was that thirsty, I had to refill my water bottle, however  doubt I had better write something  about the actual sailing.

Rod Liddy was RO assisted by Bob Torrie and they did a great job because it was one of the rare occasions I managed the podium. The wind tended light, but for a nor wester it was not too shifty and the worst thing we had to contend with was floating algae which slowly drifted to the edge of our course. In fact it was so thick that it did seriously slow the unfortunate boats to a stop that were unlucky enough to venture within its confines, situations like this can qualify as “obstructions” for radio sailing.

We had 20 boats with a mass start which made things interesting, especially for me in the first couple of heats because all I seemed to do was penalties and hit marks, also protests were the order of the day until the fleet settled down to avoid these altercations, I was pleased to note we had another arbitration hearing which Raxy as one of our three arbitrators heard.

Now it is time for congratulations, firstly to our race committee for doing a good job in setting a good course in our most difficult wind and carrying out their duties professionally, secondly to the podium finishers, Graham P, Graeme R and Tom A, thirdly to Ron Bedyn and team for cooking the sausages, Al Ross and Anzan for the Chinese delicacies and fourthly for our glutinous club members who consumed 60 sausages.