The situation…
Brett Morris (AUS8) was in the box seat. First or second spot, beat Steve or one spot behind Sean, or no racing at all would see him crowned the Series champion.
Steven Floyd (AUS222) needed to beat Brett and come no lower then one position behind Sean to win.
Sean O’Brien (AUS120) needed to beat Brett and Steve by more then one spot and not finish lower then 5th to win the series

The forecast was for increasing NE’ers in the afternoon. The race organising committee had decided that there would be no race starts after 4.30pm to allow time to pack everything up and prepare for the annual prize giving party.
All day long we sat waiting for the wind. Those of us who were there on the Thursday and Friday had seen the wind fill in at 4pm both days and figured it would be a repeat performance on Sat.
Things started to look better and better, with some people hitting the water and trying to convince the RO’s that it was windy enough to sail. At 2.55pm the AP came down and everyone rigged in preparation for racing. An hour later and it was all on, a beautiful 12kt Northeaster, a little gusty, but with good flat water.

Race one
Brett had a poor start and struggled to work his way through the fleet.
Steven had a good start and slotted into third spot
Sean found himself in a position that he is not used to – second spot.
and streaking out in front was the inimitable Sam Parker, on his shiny new JP Formula board, NP RSR II and VMG fin. Sam showed everyone the way around the course and took the victory. (Sam – is that a big enough plug for you???? Remember this when I need gear next ;-) )

Race 2
Sean tore the clew out of his modified Point 7 sail (borrowed from one of his main rivals) and could not race the last race. With no drops for the heat it was all over for him.
Steven found himself in second spot again, with Brett close behind.
but once again there was Sam Parker in the lead and doing it easily.

In the FE+ fleet we saw Ben Turner continue his domination to record the victories he needed to claim the season title outright.

With only two races completed in the allocated time, it was Sam Parker the Heat victor, Steven Floyd second. The crowd on the beach went absolutely wild. Brenda, Kay, Ev, Nerida, Sweetie, Rachael, Tam, Bel and of course Nicole ran around popping champagne corks and expressing their delight at the end of another season and the safe return of the warriors from battle (OK – I don’t really know what the reaction was but I expect this is pretty close to the truth).

Saturday night was the annual prizegiving function and a beautiful meal was enjoyed by all, and the prizes were distributed.

Thanks to…
Mike Nelson for MC’ing the night
Chris Ting for helping with the technology, and his Presidential address. Next day Chris stepped down as StormRiders President after 9 years, luckily he is not going far so we will still be able to benefit from his sage advice.
Tam (T2) for organising the function, including location, catering, cake, cleanup, cake, drinks and even more cake. Organiser Extraordinaire indeed
Sam Parker from WindSurfnSnow (‘nBowling) for sponsoring the prizes
Brett Morris for organising the trophies. He also managing to do so much work for StormRiders, Windsurfing NSW, AWA and still come second overall. Is there any limit to his abilities?
Barry Fawkes for talking his son into running racing for us that day, and kicking my ass on the water at every event this season. Barry – you are an inspiration.
Wayne Bowness for being on his best behaviour, it was a big ask but Wayne came through with flying colours.
All the competitors (54 in total) for their enthusiasm and sportsmanlike behaviour throughout the season.
Steve, Brett and Sean for providing a fantastic nail-biting last round, in my 24 years of racing different boats it was the best showing of friendly competition I have witnessed.

Series Winners were:
Overall: 1 – Steven Floyd, 2 – Brett Morris, 3 – Byron McIllveen
Grand Master: 1 – Rick Murray, 2 – Wayne Bowness, 3 – Bruce Healey
Ladies: 1 – Allison Shreeve, 2 – Krystal Weir, 3 – Jessica Crisp
Youth: 1 – Mitch Stephenson, 2 – Ben Morrell, 3 – Luke Baillie
FE+: 1 – Ben Turner, 2 – Barry Fawkes, 3 – Mick Saunders

Results and pics will be on http://www.storm-riders.com.au/, some there are some great shots on http://richcrowder.blogspot.com/

The talent included Wilhelm Schurmann from Brazil, 3x World Champion Allison Shreeve, Olympians Jessica Crisp and Krystal Weir, as well as a bunch of sailors from as far as France, Hungary, Greece and New Zealand on top of all the local Aussie contingent.

Greeted with a forecast of 20 knots the sailors were eager to get out on the water, however, the wind failed to come through and after 3-4 hours of teasing and four attempted starts which were abandoned we finally came back to the beach for an impromptu lunch break to see if we’d get a chance to race at all on Saturday.

Back on the beach it was interesting to see all the new gear. Lots of guys out with new fins from VMG Blades, a plethora of Starboard LWRs and HWRs, brand new TR-6’s from MauiSails and lots of black machines (new Exocet). Finally after another 30 mins of racing the wind picked up again (very light still) and we went back out on to the course.

Unfortunately for series leader Sean O’Brien, his race was over before it started as he broke an extension leaving the beach. Back on the course it was Wilhelm Schurmann who dominated the super light wind race ahead of Steve Floyd and Steve Walsh who was sporting the new TR-6’s. One race was all we could get in on the Saturday unfortunately.

After dinner the youngsters headed out to the local watering hole; the Tea Gardens Hotel Pub for the usual horrific local covers band and drinks served in plastic cups. For a change, the band this time was really quite good and played a set of AC/DC and Thin Lizzy hits which most of the youth division complaining that they’d never heard of.

Sunday morning about 3am a big front blew through with 40 knots measured on the beacons and plenty of rain. By 10am down at the beach we were rigged and ready to roll as the wind had subsided a fair bit but was still cranking 15-20 knots for the first race. Wilhelm continued his dominating form taking a victory by only 30m from Sean O’Brien (now with new extension) and Steve Walsh continuing his form from yesterday in a convincing third.

As the afternoon blew on, the water stayed increasingly flat which just makes this spot so memorable as the water is a really tropical green and the sand on the beach is super white (making it easy to spot the dolphins and turtles). Race 3 was a bit of a re-run with Wilhelm taking the bullet closely followed by Sean O’Brien again and this time with Brett Morris and Sam Parker back in their more usual positions up the front coming in 3rd and 4th respectively. Allison Shreeve gave a few of the boys a scare again banging in to the Top 10 in this race after nailing a 4th in the lightwind race yesterday! (that’s right boys, hands in the air if you got beaten by a girl?!)

Sean O’Brien led his star pupil astray in the next race with himself and Krystal Weir awarded an OCS which ruined his chances for the event win. Wilhelm had no trouble in this race taking another bullet with Murray Towndrow bumping up to 3rd and Byron McIIveen, the other black-power (Point-7) sailor taking a well deserved 4th.

Brett Morris added to the list of broken gear in the next race with Sean politely helping out with rescues in the little yellow submarine (umm, I mean… “boat”). The race crew were keen to get the guys back out on the water so Sean had to blast down to the start in the 20-25 knot cranking NE’er but missed the start by 4 minutes despite clawing his way back to 10th with some power fuelled by frustration!
It was easy to mark out who the PANSIES are in the fleet with Chris Ting, Sam Parker, Julien Ventalon, Brett Morris (slightly excused with broken gear), Luke Baillie, Jessica Crisp amongst others all sitting out the final race due to exhaustion. And yes, I did put these names in bold so you can be singled out and ridiculed. We might even publish this list on the notice board at the Oceanics so you can further be reminded of how soft you all are.

Back at the race-track Wilhelm took a cruisy bullet to finish the event with a perfect 5-from-5. Steve Floyd was able to return to his Saturday glory with another 2nd and Murray Towndrow another convincing 3rd.

Another fantastic event at beautiful Hawks Nest and a great chance for everyone to tune up before the 2010 FW Oceanics & Australian Championships start on Wednesday.

Enjoy the photos by Tam Hohnberg and Rob Plim.

NSW Formula Windsurfing States 2010
Ramsgate Beach, Botany Bay, Sydney
12-13 Dec.2009

After a nervous wait wondering if the predicted NE sea breeze would ever eventuate, we were rewarded with the one of the fastest developing sea breeze I can remember.
The standard rigging frenzy commenced, with some delusional sailors totally misreading the strength i.e. rigging 12meter sails, we were on the water for the 1st race in what was going to be challenging days sailing. Brian Lancy (Water RO) set a simple double windward leeward course with a finishing mark just of the beach. This allowied for great views for the peanut gallery but also a fantastic opportunity for the racers to finish and get some rest or change rigs in between races.

Race 1. Sean O’Brien AUS-120, Sam Parker AUS-3 and Brett Morris AUS-8 battled the whole race only meters apart with Sam (who was christening a Starboard LWR) taking the first victory after Sean had to double tack the top mark. John Bear AUS-135 drew first blood in the FE+, and Allison Shreeve AUS-911 was 1st woman and 5th home in the open (very impressive).

Race 2. With the wind now up around 20-22knot, there were plenty of sail changes and chicken straps miraculously appearing. Sean made no mistakes this time to take victory from Sam, with Mike Nelson AUS-12 just behind. Chris Ting AUS-5 had some serious pace in 4th, (could be something to do with his new *board HWR and Secret VMG Blade?) Barry Fawkes AUS-2111 won the FE+.
A break for lunch was called so that the a few rescues could be made, including a futile attempt to recover Sean Dayhew’s new 10.7m sail, which is now a permanent feature of the bottom of Botany Bay.

Race 3. The wind was now reading 28knots with a nasty short steep chop, probably something to do with wind against the tide? Sean was now firmly in control, but some of the others were starting to get to grips with the conditions ie Remi Dunoyer FRA-73 on a new Exocet Warp, and Steve Walsh AUS-55 in 5th and 6th respectively. Tim Ford AUS-71 won his first ever race in the FE+ making it 3 different winners in 3 races.

Race 4. We started in full on conditions, but ironically it turned out to be the lightest race of the day, with the wind moderating to what now seemed like a gentle breeze of 18-20knots. Brett and Sean adjusted to the lighter environment the quickest opening up a huge lead at the 1st mark, with Sean showing some great speed and skill to overtake Brett at the top mark and claim another victory.
Racing called for the day, which I think was a blessing for most, as the energy levels and muscle fatigue was starting to become a factor.

Sunday

The forecast of a 10-15knot SE wind was already achieved at 10am, so the general feeling was that we were in for another days of building breezes.
After getting on the water it became evident that although the wind was very consistent, it was osculating and appeared to be bending with the channel on the right hand side of the course.

Brian (RO) set a similar course except you were required to gibe around the finish mark. Again he managed to set a perfect course so the final short reach was not too tight and still allow us to finish 20m of the beach so we could get the maximum amount rest and change sail time if required. Target time was 14-15 mins for the winners.

Unfortunately for Brett, race 5 was a general recall, but not before the fleet had finished the 1st lap…Unlucky.

Race 5 proper got away with Sean and Sam continuing on from where they left off. The real point of interest was Mitch Stepensen AUS-195 (Youth) have this best race every, coming home in 6th, just behind Steve Walsh in 5th.

Race 6 Sam, Brett and Steve Floyd AUS-222 got the 3 best starts on Port, hit the starboard lay line and were rewarded with big leads over the rest of the fleet, and that is how they finished, with Murray Towndrow AUS-720 and Rick Murray AUS-4 sailing really well to lead the rest of the fleet home. Jessica Crisp AUS-15 finally broke Allison winning streak with an 8th place in the open.

Race 7 This race will be remembered for Byron McIlveen AUS-747 nailing 3rd place from the every improving Murray. In the FE+, Barry was starting to really get into the swing of winning races 4,5 and 6, but John Bear finally broke this run winning #7.

Race 8 After 2 days of solid racing and all of the positions established this race was almost not necessary, but it was raced and dominated by the by all the usual suspects.

The maximum of 8 races in perfect medium to high wind conditions combined with warm air and water has made the 2010 FW States one to be remembered.
Results:

Open: Sean O’Brien AUS-120 dominated the event and completely deserved his NSW State title. Sam Parker’s AUS-3 consistency and Brett Morris’s AUS-8 ability to stay within striking awarded them the minor placing.
FE+: Barry Fawkes AUS-2111 proved that his son Sam is not the only champ in the family, with a great victory in the every growing development fleet.
Youth: Mitch Stephensen AUS-195 from QLD is the story of the event, winning the youths with a 6th in one race, only just behind the guns. He beat out Ben Morrell AUS-88 who is back in the game after a being side tracked with small distractions, like exams? I may be wrong, but Ben was spotted on a 10.7m sail in 20knots at one stage and was out training on his BIC Techno after racing. Impressive stuff.

Woman: Allison Shreeve AUS-911proved her class yet again by competing toe to toe in the open division, but must have been happy to have another world class female competitor in Jessica Crisp AUS-15 to compete against. This was Jessica’s first FW event, which she elected to compete in, even though she was in-between RSX events “Sail Sydney and Sail Melbourne” (that is 10days of racing in the last 13 days – OUCH).

Grand Masters: Rick Murray AUS-4, Wayne Bowness AUS-98 and Tibor Ferenczy AUS-1.

A huge thanks to Brian Lancy (Water RO), Glen Morral (Shore RO), T2 Tam Ting (Photos), John Hurley (Organisation), www.windsurfnsnow.com.au for their continuing support and all the volunteers who helped launch boats, do rescues etc.

With a relatively lengthy break until Heat 5, which is the warm up event for the Oceanic’s/Nationals at Hawks Nest (30Jan-06Feb2010)

Remember 1 week in beautiful, family friendly Hawks Nest will get you 2 amazing events plus a fantastic holiday.
Please pre-enter on www.fw-australia.com

Photos by Tam Hohnberg.
If anyone would like a larger copy of any of these photos, give Tam a shout on t_hohnber[at]yahoo.com.au

Got to the Photo Gallery here – Photos

Heat 2, Huskisson, Jervis Bay (Saturday 24th October)

37 competitors made the trek to Huskisson, Jervis Bay, which in my opinion is one of, if not the best holiday and windsurfing locations in NSW. Racing takes place on and beautiful beach nested in between 2 separate camping grounds.

The forecast of a perfect NE Sea breezes didn’t quite eventuate. We were instead blessed with a cloudless sky, aqua water and a steady 9-12 knot Easterly, i.e. Perfect Formula Windsurf racing conditions.

The pressure was on a new “race officer team” of on-shore race officer (John Hurley) and on-water officer (Nick Nelson), to make the most of the conditions, which they did with ease. I don’t have a copy of the results, but I do remember 4 races, which were all incredibly competitive, including 3 different winners (2 x Sam Parker AUS-3, Steve Floyd AUS-222 & Sean O’Brien AUS-120). Probably the most impressive racer not to win a race, but lead all of them at some stage was Sam Fawkes AUS-21; maybe he was just running out of steam in the later stages of the race for some reason – and on that note, congratulations to Sam on his recent engagement. A special mention about Steve Floyd’s speed in these conditions; I feel he is doing it way too easy. It is not natural to be able to sail so low downwind, so effortlessly…. And he is clearly enjoying watching the rest of us work like dogs as he cruises by. Yes, I am jealous – but that is not the point.

Not sure who was winning the FE+ fleet, but I suspect it was some new hotshot Marmon Cat (I ‘m sure his identity will be revealed soon enough).

Saturday Night was hosted at my place, mostly because Sam Parker put up a post on the sea breeze forum stating that it was, and I was buying all the drinks. Thanks for that Sam. I owe you one buddy! The truth was that it was always going to be a fantastic days sailing and having a BBQ and Beers on a huge deck over looking Jervis Bay was a no brainer. Happy Days!

Sunday (25th October)

A drastic drop in temp, with zero wind in the morning, followed by a SE 20+ knot front in the afternoon…John and Nick (Race management) nailed it. They put the AP flag up until 1.30pm, when a perfect 15-18knot, side shore front kicked in. The course was set immediately and we were straight into 3 races. Sam Fawkes had no stamina issue in the 1st race, nailing the lay lines, especially when it was difficult to spot the bottom mark in the dark conditions. The next 2 races were in 18+ knots and were claimed by Sean O’Brien, but only after some extremely close racing with the likes of Sam Parker + Fawkes, myself, Anthony Woodrow etc….

As we packed up for the weekend, the rain arrived. Not quite to the extent of Heat 1 at Hawks Nest, but still, a ton of the wet stuff for the whole drive home.

As I mentioned earlier, I have no idea what the results look like, and I’m not too concerned as it was such a great weekends racing, and socialising with all the new faces etc…Can’t wait for Heat 3 in a couple of weeks time at Lake Macquarie (07-08Nov09). www.storm-riders.com.au for more details.

The flight to Hong Kong was pretty uneventful, except some how we again got stuck next to a feral who didn’t seem to know how to use deodorant. Landing in Hong Kong, the transfer counter insisted we pay for the excess baggage. I’d done some homework on Air France and knew that they had a Windsurfing allowance, so we escaped from there with only a $250 excess baggage bill…

A long, long flight to Paris, and very little sleep, meant that the dash to the terminal “D” was a very rude awakening in Charles de Gaule. Landing at Tegel Berlin, unbelievably our bag was second off the carousel, and the quiver and boom bag came up the baggage lift 2 minutes later, got to hand it to the efficient German baggage system, a far cry from the lost equipment last year in Portugal.

James Briggs, who you may remember from visiting Sydney last Summer, was there to pick us up in his pimped out Volkswagen Sportline. Some transport re-shuffling was required as Sean had been waylaid picking up his new sails from Lake Garda, and wouldn’t reach Berlin until 2 am the next morning. A quick rendezvous and equipment exchange with Jesper, and we drove off to Pobierowo minus Lewis who was waiting for Sean in Berlin.

Arriving into Pobierowo we met up with Markus Bouman, and most of the Polish team, for Pizza. We then set about trying to find some accommodation for the night, after 3 hours of walking the streets it became pretty obvious we were not going to find any rooms for the night, so it was into the vans, on top of empty boom and board bags.

Pobierowo Challenger

Friday morning was registration, followed by racing in the afternoon. I was feeling pretty exhausted after the travel and I was soon to pay for the lack of rest before the event. A very light westerly was building so time to rig the 11.8…….the final bit of down haul caused a tear in my calf muscle, I could barely walk, but attempted to race anyway, fortunately the race was canned due to lack of wind. I really regretted losing my winch days before the trip, and the 2 days of travel, and de-hydration had taken it’s toll. My event was over before it had started. Thankfully we had found some accommodation in the next town.

Saturday dawned with a really swollen and bruised calf which meant I was hobbling around the beach, but my day was brightened when I met a couple of guys, Karolis from Lithunania and Maris from Latvia who had bought fins this year.

All of the Polish team and Steve Allen had entered, missing was the guys still in Fuerte for the PWA Slalom event and Jesper who was working in Berlin, still there was 60+ entrants.

Two lightwind races on Saturday had Wojtek leading followed by Steve Allen, and the Polish RSX sailor Pont. Markus and Sean sitting around the twenties. (did I mention that Sean was doing the “Full Rick” with new sails, board and fins?) That afternoon Sean’s board had been holed while on the beach which meant that he would sit out the next days racing rather then rushing the repair.

Over night Allison Shreeve arrived for the start of her European tour, and to rest a few days before the Allegro cup.

Sunday morning it was blowing 28 knots down at the beach. As Sean and I were both sitting out, we caught up on some work, and finally completed and launched our new website, check it out at www.vmgblades.com Sean has done a fantastic job on the website, and we have received many compliments on it.

Meanwhile down at the beach racing got underway around lunch time, and four races were completed, with many sailors unable to get through all of the races in the tough conditions. Steve ended up winning, Wojtek second, and Pavel Hlavaty third.

Equipment wise the interesting thing is that all of the Polish guys and Steve are using the new Neil Pryde RSR EVO 2. With the correct tuning you can make these sails very fast and stable. Steve Allen told me they are the most stable sails he has used, almost too easy. Luckily I took a mental note of his settings(I’m open to offers : D )

If you look at www.formulawindsurfing.org and www.aus120.com you’ll see an event report, as swell as photos from Tammy.

Allegro Cup, Leba

Monday morning Markus was kind enough to give Tammy and I a lift to Leba(webber), while James went straight to “Hell” for a couple of days. After picking up some “Plantecki”(tarp) for rigging on and marking our 20m x 12m territory on the beach, we got into Leba around 4 pm.

Tuesday we explored the event site, and caught up with a few friends such as Magne from Norway. I’ve got to say, everything you’ve heard about these Polish event is true. Windsurfing is BIG in Poland. Banners lined all of the streets with Steves face on it, the event site is massive, with stages, sponsor booths, cafe, media centre, and competitors rest area. Apparently Windsurfing is the second largest sport in Poland.

In the afternoon a 12 – 15 knot breeze came in, and against my brothers advice(about to graduate physiotherapy) I went for a sail. I was able to test my new fins, and was pretty happy with my speed against some of the other sailors. My leg was only a problem downwind on port, but by the end of the short session it was very swollen, and starting to turn blue.

Tammy’s efforts at Pobierowo has earned her a media pass in Leba so expect to see more of her great pictures on www.formulawindsurfing.org

Wednesday morning we awoke to the sad news that Graeme Morris had passed away after his battle with Cancer. Condolences to Brett, Ev, Grae and Scarlett. I know that all of our Windsurfing community will miss Graeme immensely.

The rest of Wednesday passed quite quickly with the gear shuffle down to the beach, registration, and then the opening ceremony. Live music and buffet dinner for all of the competitors. The opening ceremony also attracted many of the public to watch the festivities.

An light offshore wind was forecast for Thursday, and that’s exactly what we got. Very similar to our Westerlies ie extremely frustrating sailing. Over 100 men meant we were split into two seeding groups. The Women and my group(blue) were sent out first. The women got away, and just after the mens start the races were AP’ed which was a shame, as I was in a pretty good position. For the next 3 hours we were drifting around waiting for the wind to return, and just as they sent us back to the beach the wind came back.

Men’s Yellow fleet was sent out as we returned to the beach, and they had two good races. Meanwhile I was replacing the boom batten in my 11.8 which had broken during the first session. Just as I had finished Blue fleet was called to the water, which meant I’d missed lunch.

First gybe and the replacement batten had broken. A really tentative second row start, but I managed to make up a few spots on the first lap, somehow James is always my shadow on the race course, and we constantly traded tacks and gybes, but we were well down the fleet. The wind died on the second lap, and James and I were lucky to finish in the time limit.

The second race and again I held back for another second row start(I need to change this before it becomes a habit), so tacking off for the starboard lay line I made up a few places, but again James my “shadow” was right there. The wind died again on our second lap, with James finishing just in front of me, but I must have missed the time limit. I’m definitely finding it tough in this fleet, as not being 100% everything is just a bit harder. Sitting in 89th looks like I’ll be in Silver fleet.

Mean while Markus was having a good day sailing around in the top ten, and Sean not far behind. The day was dominated by the usual suspects Wojtek, Steve, as well as the rest of the top guys who had now arrived from Fuetre.

Friday’s forecast was for 20 – 25 knot westerlies. In the morning it looked as though it had blown out, and the first race was abandoned, but not long later it came back with a vengeance. A large steep swell had built up overnight from the storms blowing to the west of us, so I decided to live to fight another day, rather then risking further serious injury. I can say I wasn’t too envious of the guys racing, as conditions were really tough. So I played shore crew all day, swapping fins, carrying boards rig, and lending out my equipment. Surprisingly Jesper listened to some of my tuning advice which worked out pretty well for him : D The SAR guys were flat out all day performing multiple rescues every race, but some how poor James was missed with rig damage, and was left to swim ashore a couple of kilometres down the beach. Wojtek revelled in these conditions, but all of the minor placings were hard fought between the regulars with different winners every race in the opposite fleet. Sean finally hit some form and was finishing near the top ten most races.

Saturday’s forecast is not too good, and some possibility of racing on Sunday, so fingers crossed I’ll get some more races under my belt before the start of the Formula Europeans in Sopot next week.

Saturday and a surprise westerly wind 10 – 12 knots meant I would be able to race, and wouldn’t have to pump too much. So Gold fleet, followed by Women and then my fleet ,Silver. A pretty average start, and I was getting a bit of dirty air from the guys, in front, but somehow managed to hold my line while others in front tacked off. I rounded the top mark in the top five, and had cast off my shadow James. Downwind I lost a few of spots with an over lay, but on the second work, I gained some spots to get into sixth. Down wind I sailed a little deeper, out of the first gybe, and the last gybe into the mark I caught a wave and won the drag race to finish in FOURTH…..WOO HOO!!!!!!

The next race I again broke the boom batten for the third time, arrggghhh. The worst start you could imagine, multiple tacks getting across the line and falling in, I’d given the fleet a few minutes start. I caught up a few spots and didn’t finish last, but I wasn’t far from the end. Hero to zero in a very short space of time.

Sunday’s forecast was a little better, but we sat around all day waiting for wind. The AP was dropped to attempt a start, but was soon raised again. The event was over. Steve Allen in First Pavel Hlavaty in Second(he changed back to NP RSR) and Ross Williams in Third.

A huge closing ceremony with the “Stereo MC’s” and “Kosheen” the major acts, and then a Vodka supplied party all night, where all of the sailors let their hair down. It’s good to see that once the serious business is over, the whole fleet relaxes and celebrates together.

Formula Europeans – Sopot

The morning after – Monday, looked like there was a lot of sore heads about……

Around 2 pm we finally hit the road for Sopot. James was giving Tammy and I a lift. His GPS took us through some very narrow roads, and small country towns, finally getting to Sopot around 4 pm.

The windsurfing club in Sopot is very impressive. This is a Windsurfing club only, but would put many yacht clubs to shame with its range of facilities and infrastructure.

Registration, and then marking out our rigging territory, we’d found a great shaded spot for Markus, Sean, James and I.

Racing starts on Tuesday at 2 pm with a light wind forecast so that will suit me with my calf muscle improving every day, but still not anywhere near 100%

Check out either www.aus911.com or www.bassstraitchallenge.com for all the specif details……

“The Morning Show” coverage – Click here