PRESENTATION EVENING: This annual Redlands Sailing programme fixture will take place at Balmoral Sailing Club from 7.00 - 9.00pm on Friday 30^th March. Please come along and help celebrate the fine performance of so many of our sailors this past season. Details and a booking form can be found elsewhere in Noteday. Donations are also sought for the Silent Auctions.
Please contact the Secretary Mrs Gayle McKnight at 0414582065 if you can assist.

TRAINING: All squads enjoyed good sailing of their penultimate session last week. The MIC was able to visit the Junior Squad and see them sail ashore. What an enthusiastic group they are! The Non-Representative group enjoyed pleasant conditions at the Spit and the Representative sailors used the lighter conditions for some intense and heart-stopping team race training. Team racing affords the opportunity to “hunt down” your opposition and judging by the delight with which our team members do so our rivals at the NSW Championships can expect quite a battle. The Cadets worked on boat-speed with long legs both up and down wind, which seemed to bear fruit on Saturday racing. The Cadet Development Squad excelled in light conditions as they came to grips with a triangle course.

RACING: The Pacer team, after some long and tiring Tri-Series days, enjoyed a shorter, but much sharper morning training session on Saturday. Coach Tim had them manoeuvring tightly in pre-start situations and the race practice was very close and exciting to watch. A fleet of 8 Cadets backed up for the Balmoral Club race and what a fascinating race it proved. Rory and Sarah blasted out of the blocks at the start but were soon chased down by Kat and Kati (Queenwood) who led all the way round the course. However, through dogged sailing and never giving in, somehow Rory and Sarah managed to squeeze through on the short beat to the finish to win by about 5 metres. Both crews did a terrific job and the lesson from it all is to never lose focus or determination and always sail hard to the very end. Liz and Nicola and Malin and Declan battled it out all race with the former pair breaking away towards the end for a fine third place. Tom and Markus sailed a very steady race to finish 5^th with Tim and Jasper recovering from a bad capsize which saws them drop to last to finish 6^th. Matt and Ben could just not find pace this week but laughed and smiled all day, just beating home Cyrielle and new crew Amelia who capsized a couple of times and had rig problems but sailed determinedly to complete the course – all smiles as usual. Again, this whole group distinguished themselves during pack-up with excellent team spirit and cooperative work. Once all the work was done we all enjoyed icy-poles courtesy of Declan’s Mum Anna – thank you Anna.

WORKING BEE: With this week being the final sailing week, a vital working bee is being held tomorrow, 17^th March at Balmoral Sailing Club. Any parent or friend who can assist for a couple of hours would be most welcome. Our task is to replace all the carpet on the racks with new, hard, plastic tubing. Please contact the MIC via email if you can attend.