News and other stories about real people, places, and events in Double Bay and nearby suburbs.
We’d like to welcome our newest (prospective) member, Winnie.
Winnie Tudball
Congratulations to Captain James “Steamhole” Tudball and Tess, who have this week welcomed their second child, Winnie Isabella. We are looking forward to meeting her at the club, although the Christmas Party this week may be a touch too soon.
The Tyrrell and Rousso races are on this Saturday, followed by our Christmas Party (5:30 PM-11:30 PM). Please make sure you have RSVPed for catering.
Double Bay Sailing Club is managed and run entirely by volunteers. As the saying goes, “many hands make light work. There is always work to be done in the upkeep of our shed and the ongoing running of dinghy racing.This week we’d like to thank Diana Chen. Diana has done a phenomenal job in coordinating The Women’s Regatta. From organising breakfasts and water bottles, to photography and sponsorship, there is nothing in the regatta that didn’t have Diana’s touch. The regatta has received an overwhelming positive response in execution, and over the days following, and it would not have happened without her enormous effort.
Photo credit: Andrea Francolini
The club is full of people making wonderful contributions
Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know the club hosted The Women’s Regatta over the weekend. The event was a phenomenal success (if we do say so ourselves) with glorious conditions. In the end, we had 35 women and girls line up for racing (after a few late drop outs with The Cabbage Tree Island and the latest Covid Wave taking out a few).Organisation of the event was led by Diana Chen, supported by a committee of Tory Epworth, Steven London, James Tubdall and Kate McHugh. Assistance on race documentation was provided by Michael Osborne and Yves Stening. Our PRO, Mike Forbes was assisted on the Jazzman by Vic Whitby and Craig Sheers, while David Murphy, Simon Stone and Kirk Marcolina donated Smitten as the finishing boat with Steven London joining them for duties.This event would not be possible without the volunteer support of the club
This weekend is our final spring pointscore race for the season. We will then be taking a break until 7 January (sprints) and our first Autumn point score will be the following week.The club’s calendar can be viewed and subscribed to here.
Training plays an important role at Double Bay Sailing Club, and we continue to run programs that help new members enjoy the excitement of racing, as well as providing opportunities for existing members to participate in training squads, helping with fleet compression. In addition to that, the Annual Competency Training session that we run helps us manage safety, race management, and maintaining club equipment. It allows our membership to work together to provide quality racing.Comments from the survey encouraged us to continue to guide members that are new to racing, and run clinics to improve sailing skills, strategy, and tactics. Also improving member knowledge of Sailing Rules like during mark rounding and race starts.Our ongoing Learn to Race program run by Martin White was highly rated in the survey as being important for introducing new members to the club and then continuing to help them improve and build confidence. Our partnership with the Brett Beyer Sailing program has been
From our PRO Alistair Sutherland.Saturday 10th December 2022 saw the annual Christmas races at DBSC for the Tyrell and Russo trophies. A festive fleet of about 30 boats gathered, many in Santa hats, all eager for that most important prize: to get their name on a DBSC honours board.The race team of Tim Heath, Trev Pots, Scott Finlayson, and Ben Byford found an East/South Easterly at 8 to 10 knots and duly laid a course between Point Piper and Shark Island. As the Cloud Cover burnt off and the land heated, the Sea Breeze tried its best to form from the North East, but it never really got going due to the SE gradient. All of which left us with massive left shifts, large variations in pressure, and an equal chance of making both massive gains and massive losses on each leg.The Tyrell race is unique at DBSC as it is
From our Commodore, Steven London…This will be the first of 6 weekly instalments playing back the findings and insights of the Membership survey we ran earlier this year.Unsurprisingly, 96% of members rated ‘racing’ as very or extremely important. We also asked you about more specific elements of racing – including race management, fleet competitiveness, fleet size, twilight sailing, winter racing series, and a potential ‘green fleet’… And this is what you told us:·The introduction of a ‘green fleet’ was generally not supported, with the majority saying they had no strong feeling either way.There was good interest in twilight sailing, and to a lesser extent, the winter racing series… with the majority of respondents saying they were ‘interested’ or ‘very interested’.Race Management, Fleet Competitiveness and Fleet Size – are what really matters to our members – and where our focus should be. With regard to race management, volunteers found it difficult and
We need a RIB driver volunteer to help this coming Sunday 20 November, 1-5pm. Please contact the Commodore if you can help, or put your name down in this Google sheet HERE.A big thank you to all those members who have already volunteered helping out on Sundays with RIB support (John Vasey, Richard Holstein, Darryl Lawrence, Chris Tattersall), and those who have supported on Sundays in the canteen (Paul and Shirley, Clare Alexander, Christine Patton, Mike Dunne, John Verco, Richard Au, Kim Ketelby).
Thank you to all members for supporting this initiative to sign on every Saturday before racing. This helps our volunteers with on water race management and scoring. If anyone needs help with the app or to change your sail number please email Results or see the Q&A on DBSC web site HERE.