Category: Latest from Double Bay Sailing Club

Photo by the editor

A very respectable 18 Laser sailors rocked up to the start line for an afternoon of Sprint Racing, including a couple of overseas masters taking advantage of our lovely harbour to hone their racing skills in advance of next month’s Worlds in Adelaide. The weather gods were kind, turning a light and fickle easterly into a decent 16-knot nor-easter over the course of the afternoon. It was also nice to have the Clark-to-Shark racecourse area mostly uncontested and the harbour relatively traffic-free.Our American visitor showed some impressive speed (once he sorted out the start timing), finishing three of the five short races with 100+ metre leads. The racing was close, with

See Full Post >>

Perhaps you have recently replaced some of you Laser bits, but the old ones are still serviceable. Just a reminder that our Learn-To-Race team are still needing spares, in particular:Boom vangsDownhaulsRadial (ILCA 6) mast bottom sections. If you’d like to donate, please contact either Martin White or Scott Hunter.

See Full Post >>

Wednesday 10-Jan: Twilight Sailing (5PM splash)Thursday 11-Jan: Twilight Racing (5PM splash)Saturday 13-Jan: Autumn Point Score Races 1 & 2 (2PM Warning)Wednesday 17-Jan: Twilight Sailing (5PM splash)Thursday 18-Jan: Twilight Racing (5PM splash) (including on-water coaching — see previous article)

A quick note from your editor on housekeeping at the club: our membership is quite full, so the facilities are getting a lot of use. This is starting to show, in terms of clutter and debris. If everyone both picks-up after themselves and also goes a bit out of their way to tidy up anything else they spot, our club will remain the sanctuary we all want it to be.

Thank you to the members who are sending through information for the newsletter. If you have content for the newsletter, please email it to newsletter@dbsc.com.au by Monday evening.View all racing results here.The club’s calendar can be viewed and

See Full Post >>

Spring Point Score 9 & 10PRO Luke Parker’s report:Drizzly weather and gradient NNE of 10-16 knots greeted the fleet on Saturday. Numbers were a little down with the gun younger sailors away in Victoria and some softer older sailors scared off by the rain. With the wind to the left of a traditional Nor-Easter, and a run-in tide, and no ferries, we elected to set the course deeper in Double Bay than usual. The bonus was much less traffic for the fleet to contend with.Starts were well- behaved, although the full rigs did test their luck in the second start. They got lucky.A number of sailors took the opportunity of gusts and some great waves to rehearse capsizing and righting their boats. On the basis that “practice makes perfect”, some members should be getting rather good at it.From the vantage of the start boat, it seemed upwind tactics were about

See Full Post >>

As a new feature in this newsletter, we are going to introduce new members to the club by asking them a few questions. This week, DBSC’s secretary Tory Epsworth caught up with new member John Sweeney:How old were you when you first stepped on a boat? I think I was seven, crewing on a Sabot called Nitro. If money (& sailing ability) were no limit, what boat would you buy?oneAustraliaWhat is your sailing goal?Have fun, be part of the community and enjoy this great sport. Tell us the back story to your Laser’s name?I’m still boat-less, but when it arrives, I’m thinking Rage Against the Machine – I love the band from the 90’s and it plays on the simplicity of the ILCA’s set up that I’m sure we all love. If you could add any ingredient to our already world’s best toasties – what would it be?Even more cheese

See Full Post >>

by James Tudball, Youth EngagementA large contingent of DBSC members headed south down the Hume Highway last week for the VIC State Titles, held at Port Melbourne Yacht Club on November 25 + 26. There were some impressive trailer set ups to go along with very impressive on-water results, too!

The highly competitive fleets encountered varying conditions across the weekend, with patchy oscillations and generally choppy seas with 15 knot wind strengths. Congratulations to all members for a job well done, and a thank you to our Youth Coach, Josh Becker, who helped facilitate some tricky regatta logistics.DBSC member results:ILCA 47th Ben Costandi16th Charlotte Jenkins23rd Elouise MorganILCA 63rd Sylvie Stannage4th Brooke Wilson14th Healy Ryan23rd Cormac JohnsonILCA

See Full Post >>

Reminder from ILCA NSW & ACT (Kevin Phillips):Regular price entries for the Oceania & Australian Open & Youth Championships 1-8 January close on 30-Nov. Entries after that date will incur an additional $75 charge. Enter here. The Notice of Race is here. Organisers are expecting about 200 boats.The ILCA 6 Women’s Worlds 3-10 January in Mar del Plata, Argentina, has a few places unfilled. Six Australian sailors are entered. Late entry here is closing on 12-Dec.There are also a few places available in the ILCA 7 Men’s Worlds 24-31 January in Adelaide where a record 26 Australians are entered. The late entry closing date is 27-Dec. Application can be placed here.The ILCA 6 and ILCA 7 World Masters 2-10 February in Adelaide has 134 Australians entered so far and 220 total. Late entry closing date is 27-Dec. Entry applications can be placed here.Upcoming DBSC activities:Wednesday 29-Nov: Twilight Sailing (5PM splash)Thursday

See Full Post >>

Photo by Quinn Pierson

SPRINT RACINGPRO David Airey reports:Saturday was another glorious day to be out on Sydney harbour although the conditions were at times challenging for the approximately 25 sailors and race management team. Before the briefing, the buoys were set out for a nice 10 knot Westerly. However, by the time racing got under way at 2pm the wind was dying, and the first sprint race took longer than planned. The marks were moved to shorten the course and Race 2 proceeded smoothly, albeit with big variations in wind speed and direction across the course. Then, while the crew on the Jazzman were focused on flags and timing for Race 3, it was pointed

See Full Post >>

All photos by Elisabeth Tattersall

Spring Point Score Races 7 & 8PRO Geoff Kirk reports:Last Saturday was Races 7 and 8 of our Spring Point Score series. The on-water team was Kim Ketelby and Elisabeth Tattersall on the committee boat, Ian Tudball and Conrad Johnston on the Paul Adam, and Keryn Smith on the Dene Bergman. Many thanks to them as they all did a great job.We gathered early and Pat gave us his usual pep talk on what to do and then did some dodgy religious cross in front of him praying that we wouldn’t break anything. Well, that did absolutely nothing as immediately we broke the east davit, but with a bit of improvisation

See Full Post >>

DBSC Members and their Partners/Parents are invited to join us from 5pm at our Christmas Party on Saturday 9 December, to be held at the Club after racing. Racing on the day is our famous Tyrell & Rousso Races. Stay tuned for details on these special races. RSVP using this link before 24 Nov: https://www.dbsc.com.au/club-events/2023-christmas-party

See Full Post >>