Melissa Yeomans

Sail Sydney takes over

I am sitting here trying to figure out what to say.  Massive.  Huge.  Epic.  Is pretty much all I can come up with.  I spent 4 days at Sail Sydney on the Start / Finish boat for Course area B and I am exhausted.   We had all sorts of classes including: 470, 420, 49er and FX, Windsurfers, Access Classes, 2.4, 29er, Moths etc.  At times finishing boats of such varying speeds was a little interesting.   It was great to work with some other start teams to see how they do things.

It was great to see Tom Slingsby and Iain Jensen get out on their Moths and have some fun away from their Olympic Classes.  Starting and finishing the Moths was certainly interesting.  Although we did have some very light air on the last day which meant low ride starts for the Moths.  Old School!  Thanks to those who put some DeckHardware stickers on their boats.

Sail Sydney was a huge event with over 460 competitors.  Amazing turnout!

Saturday was a pretty big effort.  I did the Radio show in the morning then rushed to MHYC to jump on the start boat so Dad could take me around to get on the WSC start boat.  I jumped into a RIB to transfer in between.  Literally going from one side of the RIB to the other as it was easier than transferring between the bigger boats.   Thanks to Dad for the delivery!

sailing chixSailing Chix with Nix is going amazingly well and appeared on the front page of Sailing Anarchy last week as a show to listen too.  We are being received so well in the wider community and had the chance to talk to Mark Richards and Carl Crafoord on Saturday about their Hobart experiences.  We are looking forward to Boxing Day and talking to them before the race start along with many others.

Listen to our live show this Boxing Day from 9am for the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race!

You can listen live via radio, streaming online or via the Tune In app – details below!

Radio: 88.7 or 90.3 in Sydney

Stream: Northern Beaches Radio (streaming)

Apps: Tune In is one of the best ways for those to listen outside of Sydney!

You can also catch our past shows, or keep up to date on news during the week via our social media!

Past shows

Melissa Yeomans

Umpiring has taken over

Over the last two weeks I have been extremely busy learning more about the world of umpiring. Two weeks ago I spent a couple of days umpiring up at RPAYC for the Harken International Youth Match Racing Champs. It was a good to see how things are done at another club. The wind certainly was very testing with more than a few postponements. I was great to meet some more umpires and see how they do things and why. Having not done a course yet everything I’ve learnt comes from on the water.

On the weekend I was unable to continue umpiring as Saturday Sailing Chix with Nix did our first on location show. 2 hours live at MHYC for the SSORC. We will be doing more of this sort of thing in the future and it was great the support we got from Scott at MHYC. On Sunday dad then asked me to help on the start boat offshore. Not a great deal of fun in 4 knots and once again I saw that postponement flag.

This past week I have been busy at the Musto International Youth Match Racing Champs. It was a different umpire team again with a handful of the same faces. Wow I have learnt a lot after two weeks in a row. I was lucky to have the support of some great umpires. The weather once again was inserting but the last two days we finally saw some great breeze from the Nor’easter.

It was great to see my friends from Musto at the regatta too. With Duncan out there on the last day to watch the action.

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It’s my turn in the warehouse now as Dad has headed down to Melbourne already for Sail Melbourne. He’s taken the DeckHardware van down with some stock and catalogues. If your there keep an eye out for him!

It’s that time of year isn’t it! Summer and Sailing! Love it!
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Melissa Yeomans

Great update from Phil on his arrival at Sandringham.

Phil Yeomans's avatarPhil Yeomans

003 I’m now south of the border in Melbourne. I’m here to help officiate at Sail Melbourne an ISAF World Cup event and the first after the London 2012 Olympics. The photo shows the van pretty full and this was without my gear!

After an early start and an 11hr drive [with stops], first stop was to Anchor marine a long time chandlery here in Melbourne to drop off more stock.  I then spent the afternoon at Sandringham Yacht Club, the host club for a lot of sailing events here in Victoria.

After unloading Krystal Weir’s Laser and her sailing gear, I caught up with Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin who recently visited DeckHardware and purchased some of the TBS Speedgrip non skid. We made a few changes to the setup and hopefully it will all suit their Viper Catamaran. I’ll be able to have a look after each days sail…

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Melissa Yeomans

Nix & Johnny Show

This morning saw me hanging out on Radio Northern Beaches again.  Good friend and host of our Sailing Chix with Nix show was in need of some company in studio so I jumped in the car to join her.  Now normally I get to the studio pretty quick on a Saturday morning but it was a bit slower at the start of peak hour!

Nix & Johnny is very different to our Sailing Chix show which has a target audience and a topic I know well.  It was good fun talking about current news, entertainment and sport!  My Cricket knowledge which is normally pretty good was a bit rusty and I did not want to even mention the Rugby score….   It was great fun for something different!   Talking about Cats running for Senate, Movies and so much more.  I must say I like the idea of turning voting into a 5 Star service as they did at one location in the States recently.  Nice food, Valet parking and much more sounds like a good  day at the polling booth!  Of course we did sneak in a little sailing talk too.

The Nix & Johnny Show is a lot of fun and recently I was a part of the Halloween special as well as the Manly Relay for Life special where they did 18hrs on air.  Make sure you have a listen to either past shows online or the next show!

Check it out and like them on Facebook too!  Nix & Johnny Show

Radio Northern Beaches is the community-based radio station serving the northern peninsula of Sydney, Australia.  Broadcasting on 88.7 and 90.3, we serve the area of Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

You can listen live via radio, streaming online or via the Tune In app – details below!

Radio: 88.7 or 90.3 in Sydney

Stream: Northern Beaches Radio (streaming)

Apps: Tune In

Covering the most beautiful stretch of the Sydney coast, our home includes beaches from Manly, Collaroy, and Narrabeen to Palm Beach. We air programs predominantly made and presented by local residents. Radio Northern Beaches is run by the Manly-Warringah Media Co-operative.

Melissa Yeomans

Yachting Awards and Sailing Chix

On Friday night the Sailing Chix and I headed to the Australian Yachting Awards!  For all the winners check out the link.  It is always a great night getting to see Australian Sailors celebrated.  There were more than 230 guests attended the event at the Byron Kennedy Hall in the Entertainment Quarter at Moore Park, Sydney.  The three of us managed to catch up with friends along with spreading the word on our new Radio Show.  The feedback we had on the show was fantastic!  Thanks so much everyone for the support.  As a sponsor of the Australian Sailing Team the Yachting Awards is certainly a highlight.

Nina Curtis and Liesl Tesch certainly are two of our biggest advocates!  Love them so much!  Good to know we have some other awesome sailing chix wanting to see our new venture succeed.

Saturday morning we then woke up early to be on air!  We kicked off a little early and still did not manage to cover everything!  We will be backing it up in the next show.   Here is our show update from Yesterday:

Jam packed champion chat!

Well what a show we had for you this morning! So much went on last night at the Yachting Australia awards that we will just have to roll over the after party to cover more interviews for you next week!

Today we did chat to Cam Williams from Channel 9, Mark Spearman who took out the Youth Sailor of the Year award, and of course our great interview with one of the Volunteers of the Year, John Middleton and Mike “Fletch” Fletcher who was honoured with the Yachting Australia Lifetime Achievement award.

We did get to meet the Minister for Sport, it was great to hear about how her son fell in love with sailing at the launch of Discover Sailing at the Canberra Yacht Club last week. We are hoping to have her on the show in the next few weeks!

The Honourable Kate Lundy, Minister for Sport presenting the Sport Promotion Award last night

On top of all of this (yes it was busy here in the studio!), we chatted live to one of the winners of Yachtswoman of the Year, Nina Curtis of ONLY Racing and of course Randy from Bangin’ the Corners! Fantastic to have them both on the show! Beau of Bangin’ the Corners is of course “Nathan’s brother” – one of the recipients of the Yachtsman of the Year award last night, along with his crew Iain Jensen, as well as Malcolm Page and Mat Belcher, and Tom Slingsby. Yes a three-way tie!

It was great to see so many of our past guests up there taking out awards last night! Of course Liesl Tesch and Dan Fitzgibbon took out the Sailor of the Year with a Disability! What an awesome year for our Sailing Chix with Nix advocate! Matt Allen also presented the SOLAS trusts award, a great cause that we all need to support as sailors.

If you missed the action today, or want to catch up on what we have been getting up to over the past few weeks check out our Past Shows page. Today’s show should be up in the next few days!

As for next week, well we have interviews with Phil Jones, CEO of Yachting Australia, and we were also lucky enough to catch up with Victor Kovalenko the medal-maker himself! These interviews and more from the 16 footer States, the Farr 40′s and a number of development programs are all happening next week!

Massive thanks to those who chatted with us last night and today! Until next Saturday, enjoy the southerly stream this weekend, and look forward to talking sailing with you next Saturday from 8am EST!

Listen to the Show:

Melissa Yeomans

Discover Sailing Launch was today

Today I had the opportunity of heading down to Canberra for the Launch of Discover Sailing.   It is a new initiative by Yachting Australia to increase the participation in our sport.  It was great to see Mal Page take out Kate Lundy who is the Minister for Sport.  During the games myself and a few others were following her tweets eagerly awaiting news from Weymouth!  Today she got to go for a short sail in not much breeze with Mal and see what it was like.  We were joking around for a bit that due to the light air he should have taken something out a bit sporty.  Trapeze maybe?  Next time.

I also finally got to see Liesl Tesch in person and give her a great big hug!  It was pretty cool to stand there with friends and compare the different Gold Medals.   The Paralympic’s Medal is labelled Sailing versus Mal’s which says which class it was for instance.  Yes we had a discussion on which was best!  Oh and then out came a Beijing Gold!  Size difference!!!  Liesl was tempted to go grab her other medals…  But there was a launch to be done!

Here is what it is about:

Page and Tesch to launch Discover Sailing

Craig Heydon, Yachting Australia

Minister for Sport, Senator the Hon Kate Lundy, London 2012 Olympic Games sailing gold medallist Malcolm Page and London 2012 Paralympic Games sailing gold medallist Liesl Tesch will launch new participation program, Discover Sailing, at Canberra Yacht Club on Friday, 19 October.

The recent success of Australia’s sailors at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games has raised the profile of the sport to a new level. Yachting Australia, with the support of the Australian Sports Commission, has developed Discover Sailing, a new participation initiative designed to bring new people into the sport across Australia.

The Discover Sailing Program features a new website,www.discoversailing.org.au, and incorporates a number of key programs, including; Tackers, designed for children aged 7-12, Sailability, a program for people of all-abilities and Discover Sailing Days, Experiences and Courses, to be delivered by Clubs.

Images from Today

 

It was worth the drive to Canberra and back!  Bring on Sailing Chix with Nix in the morning!

Melissa Yeomans

The future of sailing rocks with chix like these

 

Yesterday I had two young Teenage chix on the start boat with me at NLSC.  One has some knee trouble so couldn’t sail.  The other is her good friend and has recently asked me to spend some time with her so she can go get her powerboat licence.

I got to do the horn for the start sequence. Yep that was it! Didn’t do times, didn’t do flags, didn’t call the line, didn’t lay the line, didn’t drive the boat or pick up the marks. I just had a nice day on the start boat watching everyone enjoying a great breeze.   It was great to hear the girls talk about what sort of start line they wanted for the conditions they had.  Big shifting breeze they wanted a nice length line and tried for pin end bias.

Today one of them turns 14. Happy birthday Georgia!

The two girls are so awesome and our sports future is lucky to have young chix like them!  Not only could they run a start boat with out any problem but they were also watching competitors and discussing what they would do.  Along with directing rescue boats when we had our top Heron capsized.  It wasn’t easy conditions out there!  It certainly was a test when it was time to pick up the marks at the end of the day.