This year there were only 4 cats at Eden. Two of us Mozzies and two Paper Tigers (both from Mallacoota).
The monohull fleet was way down on previous years as well, with only the NS14s and Flying Fifteens there in strength.

The cats used to be represented by A-classes, Hobie 14s, 16s, 17s, 18s, & 20s, Paper Tigers, Maricats, Windrushes, with 20 or more boats only a few years ago.

I guess since most of the fleet at Eden comes from Canberra this says more about the state of cat sailing in Canberra (dead!) than anything else.

It's worrying to see such a big regatta shrink so much. It makes me wonder what we as a class should be doing about it.

Do we try harder to encourage people to travel to regattas to meet, race and socialise (how?), or do we accept people dont want to travel any more (for whatever reason) and focus on building up a few large club fleets?

Just looking at Victoria, there are plenty of Mosquitoes around sailing regularly at various clubs, but with the exception of Somers, there are usually only between 1 and 3 at any club. If these could get together at just a few clubs they would have 6 or more boats on the start line, and that can be enough (critical mass) to start bringing more people in (as happened at Somers).

What could the class do to encourage this?

Yes it would be good to get more mossies sailing regularly at one club, had thought about organising a traveller series around the bay about once a month meet up at a club,that is having multiple races, could be a good way of getting some of the boats from inland out and sailing again.
But it didn't attract any intrest.

Hey Rob,

I thought it was a good idea at the time but I guess there's only one of me.

I went for a sail down at Safety Beach last Sunday where 2 older Mozzies are sailing regularly. One every week and one every 2 weeks when he hasn't got his kids. I think they quite enjoyed having me visit and upping the fleet by 33%. I'm planning to go fairly often as I think if I do, one of them will probably return visit to McCrae occasionally. Good for everyone!

Would you be interested in coming down for a weekend, doing 2 shortcourses at McCrae on the Saturday and sailing up to Safety beach for the Sunday race. or... maybe Somers on the Saturday instead of McCrae and see if we can get Peter F to join us for the Sunday. (He came for a visit at McCrae last year so I bet we could twist is arm)

Maybe we could work something out for after the states. And Trevor (I know you'll read this) if something gets set up, I'd expect you to join us if I promise to return visit to Sugarloaf for the winter series.

Anyway... Just a thought.

Cheers

This is all it takes to get a group meeting regularly.
Sailing with 3-4 other boats is so much better than sailing with 1 (or worse with no-one).

I think I might change the "Clubs" page on the VMCA site so that rather than just being a list, it directs people to where they are most likely to find other Mosquitoes to race against.

....or worse... just yourself and a bunch of PT's (some of whom are really good!)

count me in one weekend after the states, just let me know a couple of weeks in advance, time and place and i will be there. might even try to get back to Sugar loaf when you are there.

Rob,

It's a shame that there were only 4 catamarans at the Eden regatta but great that both you and Tim cleaned up.

I think it's probably a sign of the times with the economic turndown and people tightening their belts.

Simon,

I promise to come across to Safety Beach on Sunday 1st March for a race just to give the Mozzie trailer shock treatment make sure that the trailer lights work and make sure that I have everything packed including the boom and mainsail for the state titles.

Do you have to pay to park at Safety Beach ? With all those multimillion $$ houses I wouldn't put it past the local council.

Regards,

Peter

Rob, that's great. we can work out a date at the states.

Peter, excellent news. I'll let the locals know we're coming.

There is a place to store trailers (no charge). I got there around 11:00 am and it was a bit hectic but the locals commented that it was a particularly busy day for some reason. I'll try to get there at 10:30 on the day. When you arrive there is a gateway on the right side of the clubhouse that has a big "no entry" and a small "members only" on it. Go through the gate to the other end of the club house where you can de-boat, de-trailer and move your car out.(free parking)

The yard is a bit tight and it required a bit of patience at the end of the day to get the boat on the trailer and out.

Cheers

we had the same trouble many years ago in adelaide with 14"skiffs. originally there were 4 at henley SC and two at Brighton and Seacliff YC. they chose to sail all together but at a different club each week. it worked for them, as they got some very high profile sailors building boats to join them. guys like Robin Duessen, Grant Geddes- who went on to win several national and world titles in I14's. they also ran once a year an invitational day, where they selected prospective sailors, these dont have to be big names, just people showing some interest in the class, and they ran a series of short sprint races swapping boats each race. if you scout around your clubs for younger sailors who might be looking to step up into a senior class i.e. mozzie. these dont have to be cat sailors either, the 14's chose a mix of dinghy, cat, fixed keel yacht, windsurfer etc. even people walking on the beach who stop for a chat while your rigging. a presentation and a bbq afterwards to show off the social side of the mozzies also go a long way.
it might be worth a go, or even a discussion??

Hi All,

I sail at Sugarloaf because of:
The friendly people
The location (35 min from home)
I am able to store the Toy up there

The people are all as nice as you lot.
Altona is about the same travel time.

But the kicker is the boat storage - I only have room for 1 trailer at my place and the club is kind to allow me to swap the boat for the box trailer at times.

I would be glad to sail at other places but the logistics of swapping trailers, needing to do it a week prior, and getting it back up for club racing can be a nightmare.

Having said that - as the waterlevel gets lower I will look further afield. and I have all but promised Simon...

So give me some notice, I cant get to them all but I will make an effort.

Trevor

Somers has Race 6 and 7 of the Championship Series from 2:30 this Saturday with back to back races. We lost two of the races in this Series as a result of wind. In total we have had 72 boats compete in the three races sailed. Division one last week included 20 larger cats consisting of 9 Mossies, 6 Hobie 16's, 2 A Class and 3 Tornado's.

Lunch available and bar open following racing. Please feel welcome to bring our young guns down to size!

Jeremy
1812 Overture

Simon,

Rumour has it that there could be more than just me coming over to Safety Beach on Sunday from Somers.

It's not an invasion of Mozzies by any stretch of the imagination but should be good for the local Mozziess to get the appropriate exposure.


Regards,


Peter

Hi Peter,

Excellent rumour.

I'm going to see what the wind forecast is and if favourable, I thought I might put the boat in at McCrae and sail down. Either way I shall see you there.

Cheers,

Simon

One of the locals is a definite starter, the other is flying in from Dubai and will make it subject to his flight being on time.

Tim, looking at the title of this post it occurs to me that I should apologise for the Hijack.

Cheers

I don't consider "hijacking" to be a problem. If a conversation is going along nicely then who cares what the title is? It's easy enough to start a new thread if it's needed.

Tim,

This report doubles up in line with this thread regarding giving Mossies added exposure and also is a report as a leadup to the 2009 Mozzie St Leonards state titles.

Matt Stone and myself trailered our Mozzies across the Mornington Peninsula this morning as a shakedown for the trailers and a shakedown for the upcoming titles. Thankfully everything worked well and we arrived safely at Simon Clavin's Mozzie base; McCrae Y.C. around 11:00 am.

We used McCrae Y.C. as the rigging and launching point as we felt it would be less conjested than Safety Beach and we felt that the sail across to Safety Beach would be a great exercise. The green lawns at McCrae Y.C. are just fantastic to rig up on and the wide rubber mats all the way to the water make life so very easy.

Simon, Matt and myself launched our Mozzies from Simon's base club just after midday and had a run/broad reach to Safety Beach Y.C. We arrived on the beach at 1:10 pm, were welcomed by the one of the Safey Beach Mozzie sailors Paul Martin who gave an impromptu briefing on the sand. Alas the other Safety Beach Mozzie didn't sail since his international flight arrival didn't give him enough time to get to the yacht club.

We signed on and followed the rest of the fleet out to the start line for a 1:30 start.

2 triangular short course races were conducted with a 10 - 20 knot SW SSW wind which was roughly parallel to the beach. We were 2nd fleet in the start sequence with an A class fleet first away. Our fleet consisted of 3 Cat rigged Mozzies, Matt Stone's Mozzie with spinnaker and 3 Hobie 17's. Glenn Ashby was racing his A class cat and naturally had a clean sweep of both races.

The racing was a very interesting with lots of wind swings due to the shelter provided by Athur's Seat. Matt used his spinnaker to great advantage and cleared away in both races.

I had a great tussle with the 3 Hobie 17's and Paul and Simon were not far behind. Paul had a bridle mounting failure in race 1 and was lucky to make it safely back to the Yacht club beach without dis-masting. Simon had trouble with his rudders in the 2nd race was forced to retire with the finish line just beyond his reach.

After the conclusion of racing we sailed back to the beach, signed off, had a brief discussion with Paul who said he would come over to Somers for some racing soon then Matt and I swapped Mozzies for the windward leg back to McCrae checking out our own and each others rigs and giving some pointers to Simon on his sail setup.

Ariving back at McCrae at 5:20 pm after 5 hours on the water we discussed the afternoon which we all thought was a great success.

Regards,

Peter

p.s. Simon didn't need any sail set-up pointers since he will be using his brand new Ashby sail with brand new yet to be received fibre foam battens at the state titles next weekend.

Nice report Peter,

Not sure how you found the energy to do it last night. I was pretty knackered after the beat home

Thanks to you and Matt for making the trip. It was a great day. A friend of mine lives up on the hill and commented that it was a fantastic sight to see the 3 Mozzies trapezing home with nothing else on the horizon. Pity they didn't think to take a photo.

Must do it again some time.

See you on the weekend.

Cheers

Saturday at Altona was there short course racing only three mosies on the water Greg Caines, Shannon Wilson and myself other cats there were 2 t4.9 mk2s, 1 t4.9 cat, t5.7 mk2 hobie 16, hobie 14 turbo and an Arrow. good raceing and strt practice, good to get more mossies there next event.