Time to change tack. Enough with the offshore and whales! Over the next few days we'll be hunting down the goss on the very successful European campains of two of WA best current matchracers, Keith Swinton and Torvar Mirsky. They now rank 34th and 11th respectively, with Torvar collecting two first placings in grade one events! Stand by.....

 As most of you guys know, we are currently having a Marten 49 CR built by Azzura Marine in NSW. A few people have been interested in progress, so i'll just put milestone updates on this thread so you can tag along for the ride.

At the moment, delivery back here should be ready for the Carnarvorn race. Anything more you would like to know, just drop us a line here and i'll get back to ya.

So anyway, this is what it looked like 14 weeks ago...

And this is last Friday..

 More

Well it is now official there is a Sports Boat fleet at SoPYC, we currently have 9 boats nominated for the season and are looking for other boats. If you have a Sports Boat and would like to sail in a division of simmilar boats then come and join the SoPYC fleet. We had about five boats on the weekend including one T750 (me) two T7's a Bull 8000 and a Runnalds 8

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I went to gero on the 30 footer on steroids Dark Energy, owned by the only female skipper in the fleet, Janet Williamson. This is not the type of boat you want to spend too much time going upwind on, and considering my last Gero race was two years ago battling norwesters on a Mumm 30, I was pretty excited at the forecast of southerly winds.

Sure enough, after a couple of stupid doglegs to make the sponsors feel like they came out to sea on a stinkboat for a reason, we were on our way to the west end of Rotto in a building sou-wester. Rounding Rotto is always a test of how fine you can cut it, whilst still ensuring you don’t have to dig out the ‘shore’ pair of undies early. And sure enough a couple of boats (you know who you are) cut it fine enough to be staring down a couple of greenies which broke not much further inside of them.

As most are aware I ended up rideless in the upcoming week and managed to pick up a ride on Ausmaid.  Rocked down on Friday morning having never set foot on the boat, scratching my head a bit, and my introduction to the skipper was being called a "fat c**t" (mistaken identity).  Good start  

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Well its now less than 24 hrs to go before the start of the best race of the WA offshore yachting pro circuit, the Allphones Fremantle to Geraldton Yacht Race. Race starts at 1pm. This race looks like its going to be a corker, with decent southerlies predicted.

The BOM says this:

Friday: E'ly winds 10/15 knots tending S/SW 15/20 knots in the afternoon. Seas 1.0m to 1.5m. Swell to 2.5m. Saturday: W/SW winds 15/20 knots strengthening to S/SW 20/30 knots by early afternoon. Seas 1.5m to 2.0m. Swell to 2.5m.

The doctors 'other sources' are predicting a bit lighter than this. BUT ITS ALL DOWNHILL. Should be a good one.

Anyone who has someone at home who wants to check that you are actually on the way to Gero, and not holed up at the Quokka Arms doing tequila shots at 1am on Friday night, might like to look at the racetracker:

Geraldton Race Yacht Plotter at http://planetdallas.net/geraldton2007/geroracecurrent.htm or alternatively

NorthBoundChart; http://planetdallas.net/geraldton2007/northchart.htm

NorthBoundLeaders; http://planetdallas.net/geraldton2007/northleaders.htm

SouthBoundChart; http://planetdallas.net/geraldton2007/southchart.htm

SouthBoundLeaders; http://planetdallas.net/geraldton2007/southleaders.htm

G'day

Welcome to the freodoctor.com.au, dedicated to all forms of sailing in all parts of Western Australia. Currently the site is in ‘draft format’, and for the next 2 weeks we’d like you to have a poke around, talk yourself up in the forums, advertise for crew in the crew finder, add your sailing schedule to the calendar, start a group for your class, boat or yacht club. You can even put your boat and gear up for sale!

For more info on how the site works, check the 'what the' button.

We expect to have bugs, and we’d like your help in identifying these and posting them in the dedicated forum.

After 2-3 weeks in draft mode, we’ll launch with a party at the Seaview Pub. Check into the site daily for details.

We have relied on 2 inches of sailing news in the newspaper for too long. A centralised information source for WA yachting is now here! However, the site will only be as good as you make it. Please don’t be scared to hit the ‘submit news’ button and give your own take on the days racing. Any racing! Dinghies, offshore, club, national, whatever you think the people ought to know. Keep it brief, light hearted and fun. A bit of good natured ribbing and smack talk is fine but don’t get personal. We’ll moderate any news submitted prior to it being posted, and may drop it to the forums if we feel its not front page worthy.

This is a new chapter for WA Yachting, and we’re proud to say “THE DOCTOR IS IN!”