IOM Winter Scratch Round 7

​I was unable to watch the sailing today, but it was good to see we had a new member, Martin Svenson join us for the IOM Scratch. Welcome to the club, Martin. We hope you enjoyed the day and look forward to seeing you along on a regular basis. It's great to see the new members coming along for a sail. Martin joins both Justin Rogers and Andrew Price as newer members joining the Sunday sailing. Andrew didn't sail today, but did help with PRO duties, which was really appreciated. It allowed John Hall to join the action after race three (John PRO'd the initial three races). Andrew will hopefully be along a bit more with IOM days very soon.

Also great to see Les Hanson back on the water today. The first time he has sailed his IOM on a Sunday Scratch event since January 2020!!

Rod Jackman made his return also to Sunday sailing, returning from his winter hiatus on the big island. Sounded like he got rather accustomed to the warmer weather though, and was not too keen on our brisk morning today.

On to the sailing, and it was good to see that we had 13 sailors on deck today, with the results showing some really good competition throughout. 

Mat Gray and Lisa Blackwood fought it out for the top placings all day, with Mat coming through with the win for round 7, on 18 points. Lisa just one point behind in second spot. Both really consistently sailed today.

Rod Jackman, fresh from sunning himself on the northern island, took out third, with 37 points. Also a really consistent day.

I wont go through all the names, as it'd take ages, but was interesting to note the closeness within a few groups there, being 42, 46 and 52 points for one group and 65, 66, 69 points for the other. It shows that there was good competitive sailing throughout.

On handicap today, it was all about the Blitz's, with Andrew Wardrop and Rod Marshall both on 3 net points (Andrew seeded 10, finishing 7th and Rod seeded 11, finishing 8th) taking out first position, with Mathew Gray and new skipper, Martin Svenson both finishing in 3rd with 2 net points (Mathew ranked 3, finishing 1st and Martin ranked 13th, finishing 11th). A great spread of experience and ability there.

After sailing, the committee had their meeting, and amongst other business that will come out with the approved minutes, it was agreed to separately let members know of future improvements on facilities etc at the club.

The committee have put in for a new government grant, which will hopefully enable us much better access to water at the competition area. The application is in the vicinity of $50000, which will include a platform and steps down to the water on the DEC side of the sailing area. Rod Marshall was instrumental in putting this application together, and the club owes Rod a debt of gratitude for his time end effort in making this application such a detailed and hopefully, hard to refuse by the Dept of Sport and Rec. This is not 100% funded by the grant, and the committee has resolved to put forward the self funded amount as required to help get the grant approved.

We have also resolved to apply for a further grant to replace the Aluminium rescue boat. This is not due till november with outcome in February, so will be some time away yet. This will also attract a 20% self funded amount, should the application be successful.

Lastly, the committee have resolved to replace the unreliable motor on the Aluminium dinghy, and this will be done in the coming weeks.

Your committee is working hard to improve the level of access to the cometition areas and give members some great facilities to use into the future. We, as a club, have been very fortunate to have some funds to help us in this regard, and we have resolved to responsibly use an amount of these funds for the benefit of the membership, rather than have it all sitting in an account, not being used. That said, we will still have enough there for a rainy day as such, should that ever occur.

As always, if there are ane members with ideas that the committee should consider, please feel free to let either myself, or a committee member know about it and we will bring it forward at the next committee meeting.

Kyle