Welcome to the Summer 2020/2021 Season

Dear Members, Sailors, Friends and supporters,

Welcome to the 2020-2021 summer sailing series.  And our 10th year of Sailing on the Tweed river.

Our seasons race calendar is now finalized and can be viewed at our club’s fantastic web site.

Please go to https://www.tvsc.com.au/events/  .  Details on this coming weekend’s race are here.

Have a good look at our web site; for the Calendar, as well as results, on line registration and race fee payments, membership details, try sailing details and info about Juniors training. As well as a fantastic gallery of photos & videos from the club’s ten-year history. 

Changes this year include registration On-line, via our web page. This is a part of our COVID safe plan and we request all participants to use this registration and payment portal to avoid physical contact on sailing days.  (For each race day.)

People wishing to crew can also register their interest and Skippers looking for crew can also register their need. This will help Skippers find crew, and crew to find a berth.
 
Another change this year is every alternate fortnight, we will conduct 3 short races.  NS14s will race their Class Championship on the short course and complete 3 races, adding up to a total of 15 Races over 5 events and allowing 3 discards for the series.

Some things haven’t changed. Racing will generally be fortnightly to avoid the Spring Tide, but some longer up river events will utilize spring tide weekends. This will include races, and lunch cruises.

There will be no scheduled races on Qld Public Holidays to avoid conflict at the ramp and with other river uses.

Racing is on this coming Sunday and is the first race of the summer point score series, based on handicap. Conducted concurrently this weekend will be the 1st heat of our highly prestigious Corsair Class Championship and we are expecting to see a big fleet of our One design 3 handed senior class.
Corsairs Class Championships and single handers will be conducted on our long Olympic course over 3 laps.
Also conducted concurrently this weekend will be the clubs Single Hander yardstick Championship series.

For this Sunday, the briefing is at Midday (NSW time – Daylight Savings Time) and Race Start is at 1pm.
Links to register your boat, covid registration, skippers looking for crew and crew wanting a spot, are all on the event page here.

We are looking forward to some good racing in our NS14 fleet, with two junior teams joining the fleet.
I would like to acknowledge the work of our management volunteers;
Once again, we will have the support of Suzanne Blatcher as time keeper and assisted by Gary McCrohan.

Bryan Townsend is our clubs Rear Commodore and is doing a great job looking after and driving our rescue boats, 

Craig Foley is again our Treasurer, and has overseen this job well, and our club is in very good shape financially. Craig also is responsible for our fantastic web site and is holding the fort as Race officer in my absence.

Mark Reynolds is again our membership officer.

Gail Bernet has taken over the role of Secretary from Garry Bargh, Garry did an excellent job in this position and we wish him well in his new club. And we welcome Gail to the job.

Peter Ross is our Grants manager, and is busy applying for all sorts of grants to help fund items required for the club.

Monique Smith is coordinating our “She Sails” efforts and is now halfway through her first “Women on Water “sailing introductory course.

This year we say good bye to Alison Blatcher who had an enormous influence in our club fro its very early days and introduced the Corsair class to the Tweed. Alison was widely viewed as the Clubs Admiral and we are much depleted without her.

David Chester has vacated the Vice Commodore position, and we are now in search of his replacement. Please contact me if you would be interested in this position.

We are also very short of volunteers in other management positions.

We have had no nominations for committee positions and welcome any members who would like to join the committee.

We are also looking for volunteers to manage our merchandise, our Juniors Training, and Learn to sail coordinator’s.

Last season was cut short due to COVID, and we were forced to cancel our annual dinner. Although we managed to complete most of our programed races.

This season I am planning our biggest Presentation dinner ever to make up for this, and to celebrate our club conducting sailing events on the Tweed for ten years.

I look forward to seeing all our members, past and present at this dinner, to help celebrate this milestone, and we are expecting our first Commodore and founding member Hugh Millikan to travel from NZ to attend,  

Let’s have a great summer on the water and enjoy sailing on the Tweed River. I look forward to seeing you and sailing with you this season.

Bill Fenelon, TVSC Commodore. 0411 123 405